New Delhi: In a blistering attack on the Modi government, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi on Saturday said its “stony silence” and “inaction” on Israel’s “Gaza genocide” are not just morally reprehensible but also inexplicable from a national interest perspective.
Gandhi, the Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson, claimed that India has alienated itself from its historical allies in Palestine, Iran, and the larger Middle East and has distanced itself from global public opinion, while letting Pakistan swoop in to claim the space of a mediator.
In an article for The Indian Express, Gandhi also termed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel ahead of the US-Israel joint attack on Iran, a “bewildering strategic decision”.
In an article for The Indian Express, Gandhi said she also termed Prime Minister Narendra Modi visit to Israel ahead of the US-Israel joint attack on Iran, a “bewildering strategic decision”.
The Congress leader said the spirit of Indian nationhood demands that it speaks up for Palestinians whose children have been so brutally targeted and the calculus of national interest demands that India respond to the global public opinion against the Israeli regime’s “genocidal actions” in Gaza and its “brutal displacement and dispossession of lakhs of Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank”.
“The Modi government’s continued silence simply cannot be explained rationally or morally,” she said.
In September 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory concluded that Israeli authorities were committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, she said.
In June 2026, the same commission – now headed by Justice (retired) S Muralidhar, a distinguished Indian jurist – has poignantly reiterated that Israeli actions are intended to destroy the very existence of the Palestinians in Gaza by targeting their children, Gandhi said.
“The 94-page report is a harrowing read, with grim details on the extent of the devastation perpetrated by Israel in Gaza and the genocidal intent underpinning its actions. At least 20,000 children have been killed, and another 44,000 have been wounded, many for life,” she said.
The targeting of children is not incidental, but a deliberate strategy, Gandhi asserted.
The targeting of children is not incidental, but a deliberate strategy, Gandhi asserted.
Healthcare infrastructure, including paediatric hospitals, has been destroyed, resulting in a 300 per cent increase in miscarriage and childbirth complications, Gandhi said.
In the two-and-a-half years since the “dastardly, horrific, and absolutely unacceptable attack” by Hamas on Israel, it has become clear that the retaliation of the Israeli armed forces and political leadership has been characterised by “wanton cruelty and barbarity”, she said.
“Senior Israeli leaders, down from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his senior cabinet colleagues themselves, have called for the ‘complete siege’ and ‘total annihilation’ of Gaza, denounced the Palestinians as ‘animals’ who have ‘no right to exist’, and defined success for Israel as ‘hundreds of thousands fleeing Gaza’,” Gandhi said.
