{"id":568720,"date":"2026-07-31T14:15:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T14:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/568720\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T14:15:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T14:15:12","slug":"pakistan-defense-minister-khawaja-asif-warns-of-israeli-india-military-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/568720\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Asif warns of Israeli-India military relations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pakistan&#8217;s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif stated that Israel and India have maintained a long-standing military partnership against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/article-904095\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Pakistan<\/a>, describing both countries as Islamabad&#8217;s enduring adversaries.<\/p>\n<p>For more stories from The Media Line go to <a href=\"https:\/\/themedialine.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">themedialine.org<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">He said their defense cooperation has evolved over several decades and should not be seen as a recent development.<\/p>\n<p>Asif made the comments in an interview with the Urdu edition of the British publication The Independent, days after former Israeli Air Force officers publicly disclosed details of Israel&#8217;s military assistance to India during the 1999 Kargil War.<\/p>\n<p>In an exclusive interview with Indian broadcaster NDTV on July 26, former<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/tags\/air-force\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> Israeli Air Force<\/a> officers Ami, a former program manager at Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, and Shlomo, a former Mirage squadron commander, said Israel provided equipment and technical support to the Indian Air Force during Kargil War.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Ami said a defense project launched in 1996 was transformed into an emergency mission after the conflict erupted, prompting Israel to expedite the integration of Litening Targeting Pods and other systems on India&#8217;s Mirage 2000 fighter jets.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"The flags of Israel and India flutter as Narendra Modi makes a state visit to Israel, outside of the Knesset, in Jerusalem, February 25, 2026\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"822\" height=\"829\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/images.jpost.com\/image\/upload\/f_auto,fl_lossy\/c_fill,g_faces:center,h_537,w_822\/708326\"\/>The flags of Israel and India flutter as Narendra Modi makes a state visit to Israel, outside of the Knesset, in Jerusalem, February 25, 2026 (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM\/THE JERUSALEM POST)<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">The two former officers said they were publicly discussing Israel&#8217;s role in the conflict for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>India, Israel hostile towards Pakistan, defense minister claims<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Responding to the revelations, Asif said they confirmed that cooperation between India and Israel against Pakistan was not a recent development.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">He said the disclosures by the former Israeli officials demonstrated that the two countries had long shared a common hostility toward Pakistan. &#8220;It existed before Kargil, continued throughout the conflict, and remains in place today,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">He argued that &#8220;If you look at the international landscape today, both countries are isolated. India, too, is isolated and lacks direction on the global stage,&#8221; Asif said. &#8220;It has lost whatever limited international standing it once had. Pakistan occupies an important position internationally today, and this reflects an extraordinary achievement by our leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asif has stirred controversy over harsh criticism of Israel. He posted on X on April 10: &#8220;Israel is evil and a curse for humanity.&#8221; He added, &#8220;I hope and pray people who created this cancerous state on Palestinian land&#8230; burn in hell.\u201d The post was later deleted; however, it was denounced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Foreign Minister <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/politics-and-diplomacy\/article-902627\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Gideon Sa\u2019ar<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Following the X post, Asif restated his stance in the Pakistani parliament, arguing that the Muslim world should recognize India and Israel as its &#8220;true and eternal enemies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan claims India using Israeli drones<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">During the brief conflict with India in May 2025, Pakistan also claimed that New Delhi had deployed Israeli-made drones.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement issued at the time, the Pakistani military said India launched drone attacks on multiple Pakistani cities on May 8, 2025, using Harop loitering munitions. It said the drones were manufactured by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/business-and-innovation\/all-news\/article-903210\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Israel Aerospace Industries<\/a>, an Israeli defense company.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Asif said Pakistan would need to remain mindful of the ongoing strategic cooperation between India and Israel, noting that the two countries were expected to continue coordinating on matters affecting Pakistan&#8217;s interests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pakistan&#8217;s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif stated that Israel and India have maintained a long-standing military partnership against Pakistan,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16606,85,207,3792,46,15622,43,338,7991],"class_list":["post-568720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-drone","tag-il","tag-india","tag-india-israel-relations","tag-israel","tag-israel-aerospace-industries","tag-news","tag-pakistan","tag-the-media-line"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}