What Does Israeli Army Soldier Thinks about Indian army

My first encounter with the Indian military was on the Gaza border, during the summer of 2015.

The Lieutenant Colonel of my unit was guiding a tour of the Gaza border, for a delegation of high ranking officers from the Indian military. I believe the highest ranking officer was a Major General.

I was ordered to go on the tour, and assist in translation (Hebrew to English) for the Indian officers.

My interactions with the high ranking officer was pleasant, and I did not feel at all that I was talking to a Major General. He was very assertive, humble and respectful.

The rest of the delegation seemed to be highly intelligent and to have a great understanding of threats and assets a border has. They were mostly interested in the technology incorporated into the Israel-Gaza border, as they wanted to incorporate the same technology into the Indian-Pakistan border.

After touring the border for several hours, and answering hundreds of questions by the Indian delegation about the border and security protocols, we also ran a training simulation.

The drill was a simulation of a Hamas fighters, emerging out of tunnels on the Israeli side, and taking an Israeli kibbutz (located 1 km from the border) as hostage.

As the drill went on, the officers asked questions and were extremely interested in the tech, tactics and equipment the soldiers were using. The Indian officers insisted on meeting the soldiers, and so, we later introduced the high ranking officers to the teams who simulated the exercise (including my team), and held a Q&A for about thirty minutes.

In addition to touring the border and presenting the simulation, the officers were taken to a shooting range to test fire some Israeli weapons. We spent about two hours shooting Micro-Tavor’s, Tavor’s, Gilboa’s and Negev’s.

The whole day was quite an experience, and my very first interaction with people from India. It was absolutely sublime.

The Indian nation is a great friend of Israel, and I hope our nations remain as allies and friends for years to come.

This has been taken from Quora and was written byBen Kolber