NEW DELHI: Indian veterans joined in condemning Israel’s killing of a former army officer and UN staffer Col. Waibhav Anil Kale, whose body was returned to India for burial on Friday.

Kale was on duty with the UN Department of Safety and Security when he was targeted in his UN-marked vehicle in southern Gaza on Monday.

A former peacekeeper, he was hit by what the UN said it had no doubt was Israeli tank fire.

The Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv shared a photo on Friday morning showing UN officials paying their last respects to Kale, before his remains were flown to Delhi.

While the Indian Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement saying it was “deeply saddened by the death,” civil society has urged the government to hold Israel accountable. Former servicemen also joined the call.

“Israel must be held accountable. Killing a veteran officer engaged in the UN is a serious issue,” said Indian Army Maj. Gen. (retd.) Yashpal Mor.

A former UN staffer himself, Mor told Arab News that Kale had a “brilliant career” and was known in the army circles.

“When you work with the UN, you are in an international environment, but you have the ethos and ethics of the Indian army. It was very sad and very shocking. He actually died in the line of duty,” he said.

“Israelis have been doing this since the beginning. They are not worried about anyone. They are going berserk.”

Israel’s deadly siege and bombardment of Gaza has since October killed over 35,300 people, wounded 70,000, and left most of the enclave’s population starving and with no access to food, water, and medical supplies.

“Israelis will lose sympathy by doing this indiscriminate firing,” Col. Anil Bhat (retd.), former spokesperson of the Ministry of Defense, said. “In the Indian army, we are so attentive to civilian casualties that we lose more men by not doing indiscriminate firing … Indiscriminate killing is not good. Israelis will lose sympathy.”

The UN estimates that more than 190 of its staff members have also been killed in the ongoing onslaught. Kale was the first international UN employee to be killed.

New Delhi had always been sensitive to assaults on UN personnel given that it is one of the largest contributors of the organization’s peacekeepers.

But the government’s statement did not contain condemnation of Kale’s killing, unlike in July 2022, when two Indian peacekeepers were killed in an attack on a UN Organization Stabilization Mission base in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

At that time, India’s foreign minister said the perpetrators “must be held accountable and brought to justice” and convened a special meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the attack.

“India has good bilateral relations with Israel, but that shouldn’t prevent it from strongly condemning the latter,” said Air Marshal (retd.) Kapil Kak of the Indian Air Force.

“One is deeply pained and distressed at Israel’s barbaric force in Gaza, which has led to the death and maiming of thousands of children and monumental human suffering. This is in sharp contrast to past India-Pakistan wars. I took part in two of these, which were far more civilized in character and caused no collateral damage, despite the absence of precision-guided munition.”

NICOSIA, Cyprus: The governments of eight European Union member states said Friday the situation in Syria should be re-evaluated to allow for the voluntary return of Syrian refugees back to their homeland.
In a joint declaration, officials from Austria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Malta and Poland said they agree on a re-assessment that would lead to “more effective ways of handling” Syrian refugees trying to reach European Union countries.
The eight countries, which held talks during a summit meeting in the Cypriot capital, said the situation in Syria has “considerably evolved,” even though complete political stability hasn’t been achieved.
Cyprus has in recent months seen an upsurge of Syrian refugees reaching the island nation primarily from Lebanon aboard rickety boats.
Earlier this month, the EU announced a 1 billion euro ($1.06 billion) aid package for Lebanon aimed at boosting border controls to halt the flow of asylum seekers and migrants to Cyprus and Italy.
The eight countries said the EU should further boost support for Lebanon to “mitigate the risk of even greater flows from Lebanon to the EU.”
“Decisions as to who has the right to cross a member state’s borders, should be taken by the government of the relevant member state and not by criminal networks engaged in migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings,” the joint declaration said.
A Cypriot official said that any re-evaluation of conditions within Syria would not necessarily mean that Syrian refugees would be deported back to their country. Instead, Syrian refugees hailing from areas re-designated as safe would lose any allowances, benefits and the right to work, creating a disincentive to others to come to Cyprus.
The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t allowed to speak publicly about details of the proposal.
The countries said that while they “fully embrace” the need to support Syrian refugees in line with international law, they hoped their talks could open a wider debate within the 27-member bloc on the process of granting the migrants international protection.
In Lebanon, where anti-refugee sentiment has been surging recently, more than 300 Syrian refugees returned to Syria in a convoy earlier this week.
Lebanese officials have long urged the international community to either resettle the refugees in other countries or help them return to Syria.