Army chief on five-day trip to Israel for strengthening defence ties

<p>
General MM Naravane, the Chief of the Army Staff, has left for a visit to Israel from 15 to 19 November 2021, according to an official statement issued on Sunday.</p>
<p>
During the visit, he will be meeting the country’s senior military and civilian leadership where he will discuss avenues for further enhancing India-Israel defence relations.</p>
<p>
The Army Chief will take forward the excellent bilateral defence cooperation between Israel and India through multiple meetings with senior officials of the security establishment and exchange views on various defence related issues, the statement said. </p>
<p>
He will interact with the Service Chiefs and visit the Headquarters of the Ground Forces element of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF)..</p>
<p>
The visit comes at a time when India and Israel have just signed an agreement to jointly develop next-generation technologies and products such as drones, robotics, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.</p>
<p>
India has been one of the biggest buyers of Israel's military hardware. Israel has been supplying various state-of-art the weapon systems, missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles to India in recent years.</p>
<p>
The visit by the Army chief comes weeks after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar travelled to Israel to boost strategic ties.</p>
<p>
In August, then air chief marshal R K S Bhadauria had also travelled to Israel.</p>