New Delhi: In an unprecedented diplomatic move, Israel’s ambassador to India, Reuven Azar, has publicly slammed Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, an Opposition leader, over her remarks accusing Israel of “committing genocide” in Gaza.
The Congress MP’s remarks came after an Israeli airstrike Sunday killed five Al Jazeera journalists sheltering near Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital. “The Israeli state is committing genocide. It has murdered over 60,000 people, 18,430 of whom were children. It has starved hundreds to death, including many children, and is threatening to starve millions,” she wrote on X. “Enabling these crimes by silence and inaction is a crime in itself. It is shameful that the Indian Government stands silent as Israel unleashes this devastation on the people of Palestine.”
Ambassador Azar responded within hours on the social media platform: “What is shameful is your deceit. Israel killed 25,000 Hamas terrorists… Gaza’s population has grown 450% in the last 50 years… no genocide there. Don’t buy Hamas numbers.”
What is shameful is your deceit. Israel Killed 25,000 Hamas terrorists. The terrible cost in human lives derives from Hamas’s heinous tactics of hiding behind civilians, their shooting of people trying to evacuate or receive assistance and their rocket fire. Israel facilitated 2… https://t.co/e3lSUwfmXH
— 🇮🇱 Reuven Azar (@ReuvenAzar) August 12, 2025
Among the five journalists killed Sunday was Anas al-Sharif, dubbed by many as ‘the voice of Gaza’, near the gates of Gaza’s largest medical facility. His killing has sparked global outrage with journalist bodies and rights groups calling it “one of the deadliest wars for the press in recent history”.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) acknowledged carrying out the targeted strike, accusing Sharif of being a Hamas military commander. Al Jazeera and several media rights groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), have rejected the allegation, citing lack of credible evidence.
“International law is very clear,” CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg was quoted as saying by the BBC. “Being a media advisor—even for Hamas—does not make someone a combatant. Nothing the Israeli forces have produced so far changes that.”
However, according to the BBC report, Sharif had publicly criticised Hamas in the past and that his current affiliation with the group remained unproven.
RSF called the allegations against Sharif “baseless”, and warned that without international intervention, “we’re likely to witness more such extrajudicial murders of media professionals”.
The war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s 7 October, 2023, attack on Israel, has left over 60,000 Palestinians dead, according to Gaza’s health authorities, with widespread famine conditions emerging in parts of the strip.
Israel maintains that the humanitarian crisis is the result of Hamas’s tactics, not its own policy.
“We facilitated 2 million tonnes of aid,” Azar wrote in his X post Wednesday. “Hamas tries to sequestrate them, thereby creating hunger.”
But according to human rights groups and international observers, the scale of destruction and civilian casualties, along with attacks on media workers, constitute possible violations of international law.
In July, al-Sharif had gone viral after an emotional on-air report in which he had broken down while covering widespread starvation. Onlookers had urged him to continue, saying his reporting gave Gaza a voice.
Not long after, an Israeli military spokesperson had revived previously unproven allegations from 2024, accusing Sharif of being a Hamas operative, and claiming he was part of a “false Hamas campaign on starvation”.
The CPJ had condemned the accusation, warning that such claims amounted to a direct threat to his life.
Israel released a dossier it said had been recovered from Gaza, linking Sharif to Hamas. But the documents date only up to 2021, two years before the current war, and make no reference to his frequent live news broadcasts during the conflict, according to a report by The Guardian.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
If Israeli ambassador can not defend his country’s interest in India, who else will? Did Priyanka Vadra ever talk about the Israeli and international hostages held by Hamas? Even before Israel sent IDF into Gaza, Israel was demanding the release of its hostages to prevent large scale destruction in Gaza. That was two years ago. Still Hamas holds the innocent hostages and uses them for propaganda.