India and Israel have signed 16 agreements during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit, which includes provisions for 50,000 additional Indian labourers to receive visas for work in Israel.
Israel would allow 50,000 additional Indian workers into the country over the next five years, especially in manufacturing sectors, an Indian foreign ministry statement said on Thursday after Modi’s visit.
After October 2023, Israel barred most Palestinian workers from entering Israel. India stepped in by sending waves of low-cost Indian workers to Israel.
By mid-2025, over 20,000 Indian labourers had gone to Israel, including thousands in construction, explicitly replacing Palestinian labour and supporting Israel's economy and construction sector during the genocide.
India has historically supported the establishment of a Palestinian state but under the Modi government New Delhi has sometimes abstained from criticism of Israel in international forums, including in voting at the United Nations about the genocide in Gaza.
Prior to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, some 100,000 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank worked inside Israel, with an additional 40,000 employed in illegal settlements and Israeli-controlled industrial zones in the occupied West Bank.
Currently, approximately 7,000 Palestinians are permitted entry into Israel monthly, with an additional 9,000 working in illegal settlements or adjacent industrial areas.
According to Israeli government data, Palestinians constituted 29 percent of Israel’s construction workforce before 7 October, but now that workforce is being replaced by lower-cost Indian workers.
The average monthly salary in the Occupied West Bank is approximately $430. In contrast, Israel’s minimum wage, applicable to legally employed Palestinian workers, is about $1,890, while skilled Palestinian construction workers can make $2,380 or more per month.
India-Israel ties under Modi
Under Modi, India-Israel ties have strengthened, signalling a major shift in India's foreign policy towards closer relations with Israel.
India, traditionally a supporter of the Palestinians, established full diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992.
It has long been Israel's largest arms buyer, but during the Gaza genocide, it continued specific flows of defence items that benefited Israel's military onslaught against the besieged population.
Manufactured in the Indian city of Hyderabad through a joint venture between India's Adani Defence and Aerospace and Israel's Elbit Systems, India reportedly supplied dozens of Hermes 900 drones to Israel during the genocide.
These medium-altitude, long-endurance drones have been used by the Israeli military for surveillance and strikes in Gaza.
Indian companies reportedly exported explosives, rocket components, and other munitions-related items to Israel during the genocide, according to shipping documents and investigative reporting.
In May 2024, Spain refused entry to a ship carrying arms from India’s Chennai city to Israel to dock at one of its ports.
Reports suggest Israeli forces used an AI weapons system in Gaza, co-produced with an Indian firm, to automate machine guns and assault rifles.
India did not back and abstained from several UN resolutions critical of Israel during the genocide, avoiding language that would isolate Israel internationally, including a 2024 General Assembly vote calling for an "immediate, unconditional and permanent" ceasefire in Gaza.
Reports also indicate hundreds of Israelis born in India, in particular from the northeastern states of Manipur and Mizoram, have answered the Israeli military's call to “fight in Gaza”.
In December 2024, as Israel's genocide in Gaza continued for 428 days, India cited "national interests" and commitments to "various regimes" in defending arms supplies to Israel.
During his Knesset speech on Wednesday, Modi condemned Hamas’ October 2023 attacks but choose to remain silent on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, where Israeli forces killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, flattened much of the enclave, and displaced almost all of its 2.3 million residents.
