Israel-Hamas war: Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says we want Prime Minister Narendra Modi to support an end to war:

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he expected Prime Minister Narendra Modi to support a call to end the ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza. Calling PM Modi a” great and very important international leader”, Olmert said that “we expect him and want him to support an end to the war”.

Olmert made the remarks while speaking to India Today’s Consulting Editor Rajdeep Sardesai in an exclusive interview. On Monday, Israel marked one year of the Hamas attacks, which triggered the ongoing war in Gaza.

On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian militant group attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 as hostages. Over 42,000 Palestinians have died due to Israeli strikes so far, while more than two million others are displaced, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

During the interview, the former Prime Minister said “very intense support from India” was also required for negotiations for a two-state solution to resolve the decades-long Israel-Palestine issue.

“India is an enormously important, highly regarded country. The leadership of India is very important to us, as well as to the Palestinians. It can play an important role in this process,” he added.

Further in the interview, Olmert acknowledged that since the Hamas attacks, it has been a “very difficult, a very painful, a very bloody year” for Israel.

“I think it’s time to end it. And my first expectation is that Israel will decide to stop the war in Gaza. We have broken down the Hamas military power. We destroyed most of the tunnels on the ground in Gaza and killed most of its fighters… There are 101 Israelis who are still held by Hamas as hostages, and if we need to stop the war in order to bring them back, then we have to do it,” he added.