Around a week since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, 212 Indians who were stranded in Israel landed in New Delhi on the first day of Operation Ajay, the country’s repatriation mission.
The passengers, most of whom were students, were chosen on a “first come first serve” basis after a drive launched by the Indian embassy for all Indians to register on the mission’s database. The government is bearing the cost of their return. “Operation Ajay gets underway. 212 citizens onboard the flight are enroute New Delhi,” External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in a post on X.
Over the last week, the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict took a turn for the worse when the armed Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an attack on Israel. Israel retaliated with air strikes across the Gaza Strip, before declaring war on the Hamas.
Officials have said that the country is preparing for a ground incursion into Gaza. The death toll in the war has already risen to more than 2,800.
