External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar speaks during an interaction, at IIM Mumbai, Tuesday, January 30, 2024.
Credit: PTI Photo
Mumbai: India favours a two-state solution to end the decades-long Israel-Palestine conflict, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Tuesday, as the latest war in the Gaza Strip ignited by the Hamas' brutal attacks inside the Jewish state in early October, shows no sign of coming to an end.
He said the conflict in West Asia must be viewed in totality and termed the Hamas' deadly incursions inside Israel nearly four months ago as a terrorist attack.
Replying to a question at an interaction with students of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Mumbai, Jaishankar said, "It is certainly the view of India, and a very large number of countries that (the problem can be) only be done (resolved) through a two-state solution that there has to be a Palestinian state side-by-side with the state of Israel."
"So for us today, there are all the aspects. We cannot take one aspect and say that's the only aspect because if you see the debate in the world in a way that is what people are doing," he said.
The diplomat-turned-politician maintained that if there are six issues out there, and if anyone takes one or two and if the rest four don't matter then such an approach won't work in resolving the conflict. "I think that is not helpful. I think we have to look at the totality of all these issues and strike the right balance and that is really in a way what we are trying," he added.
Jaishankar said what happened on October 7, 2023, was a terrorist attack, referring to Hamas militants launching a series of assaults inside Israel after storming across the border. About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the attacks, while nearly 250 Israelis and other nationals were taken hostage by Hamas.
"I don't think there should be confusion on that and as a country which has itself experienced so much terrorism, I think it's important that we recognise that and we expressed that solidarity (with Israel) as another victim of terrorism," noted the External Affairs Minister.
On Israel's strong response to the Hamas attacks, which triggered a war in the Gaza Strip, he said when any country responds, it is equally important to observe international laws, and called for avoiding civilian casualties.
The nearly four-month-long war has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, destroyed vast swaths of the Gaza Strip, a tiny but densely populated Palestinian enclave, and displaced nearly 85 per cent of the territory's population.
Israel says its air and ground offensive has killed more than 9,000 militants. "Every effort should be made to ideally avoid or limit civilian casualties," Jaishankar insisted. Where there is a situation in which civilians are affected, which is the case today (in Israel-Hamas war) very manifestly in Gaza, there has to be some kind of sustainable humanitarian corridor which will deal with it, Jaishankar said.