New Delhi

Reuven Azar, the Ambassador of Israel to India, on Wednesday expressed concerns over reports of leaders of Palestinian terror outfit Hamas going into a huddle with terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK), earlier this month.

"Unfortunately, terrorist organisations work in networks and many times they find ways to support each other in a way that is detrimental for many countries, not just for our region," Azar told IANS in an exclusive interview.

"The fact that, for example, there was a meeting only a couple of weeks ago in the areas that are under Pakistani control in Kashmir of leaders of Hamas tells you something about how these terrorist organisations are inspiring each other... Apparently, they are cooperating in order to achieve their common goal which is to terrorize us and to terrorize you. So this is something that we have to take into account," he added.

India on Wednesday is marking the sixth anniversary of the "punitive" Balakot airstrike carried out by the Indian Air Force (IAF) that destroyed the JeM camps in PoK where operatives were trained for suicide missions and deadly terror attacks.

The airstrike was part of India's campaign against cross-border terrorism after the horrific Pulwama terror attack in 2019 and manifested the country's willingness to take decisive action against terror infrastructure in Pakistan.

Several leaders have voiced their concerns over Pakistan's involvement with terrorist organisations to fuel unrest in the region after Hamas Commander Khaled al-Qaddoumi and other Pakistani terrorists were spotted during a rally in PoK.

Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) spokesperson Vinod Bansal had claimed that Pakistan's Intelligence agency ISI is playing an important role in this "terror alliance".

Israel's ongoing large-scale offensive against Hamas has also come in response to the deadly assault carried out by the terror outfit on southern Israel on October 7, 2023 which resulted in around 1,200 deaths and the taking of 250 hostages.

On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar emphasised that the government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is willing to extend the ceasefire agreement with Hamas in exchange for more freed hostages.

"We do not rule out an extension of the temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of additional hostages," Sa'ar reportedly said as he held a series of "personal meetings" with his counterparts from the European Union as part of his diplomatic visit to Brussels.

Sa'ar made it clear that any extension of the temporary ceasefire will not happen without the release of hostages.

"We are committed to the release of our hostages and to the war's objectives that we set."

‘We have to bring back all hostages’

Israel remains completely focused on bringing back its hostages and completely destroying Palestinian terror outfit Hamas so that it can no longer constitute a military threat in future or form a government in Gaza, said Azar.

"We have managed to bring back most of our hostages. We are left now with about 69 hostages. Of which, about half of them are dead. We have managed to bring almost 190 hostages back and we are trying to be persistent on the goal that our cabinet has determined," said Azar.

"We have to bring back all our hostages and also make sure that Hamas is destroyed and can no longer constitute a military threat nor be the government in Gaza... Because, we know that if Hamas comes back to become the government in Gaza, the time frame until we will have another 7th of October will shorten. Therefore, we are very stubborn in achieving both goals," he added.

Since the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas began on January 19, the terror outfit has released 25 Israeli hostages in much-publicised handovers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear that the release of Palestinian prisoners would be delayed until Hamas ceases its "humiliating ceremonies" during the release of Israeli hostages under the ceasefire deal.

Reflecting on the developments since deadly assault carried out by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7, 2023 which resulted in around 1,200 deaths and the taking of 250 hostages, the Israeli Ambassador to India lauded the work done by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the decisive actions taken by the government back home.

"We have not only withstood, managed to not only survive, but also succeed in giving a decisive answer to the attack that happened to us on the 7th of October... Not just what Hamas did to us, which was atrocious, but in the context of what the entire Iranian proxies have tried to do against Israel. So we have managed to remove from Israel a very significant threat of hundreds of thousands of rockets that were coming from Hezbollah. Capabilities that were being built in Syria, were being built in Iran against us," said Azar.

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Both the IDF and the Israel Security Agency (ISA) Shin Bet have been reiterating that Israel will continue to pursue all of the terrorists responsible for the October 7 massacre and will operate against anyone who threatens the country.

"The fact that we have succeeded in this military operation, that there's no longer a military machine of Hamas that is capable of threatening all the centers of population in Israel. The fact that Hezbollah is no longer a threat to northern Israel in a significant way and that Iran got hit very severely in very strategic points of their missile programme is very significant because when those enemies that have sworn to destroy us are debilitated, this gives peace and stability a chance. We have a window of opportunity now, a combination of the Israeli military victories and the coming of the Trump administration to do many good things for the region," Azar mentioned.