Israel on Monday unleashed more airstrikes on Gaza and shot down a drone used for the first time by Hamas militants even as international pressure mounted on both to end the week-long conflict that has killed 177 Palestinians.
Sources said a high-level team of the Indian Air Force is already in Paris to coordinate with the French officials on the handing over ceremony.
The squadron, which operated from Bhatinda air base, was disbanded in 2016 after the IAF started gradual phasing out of Russian-origin Mig 21 jets.
United States President Joe Biden Tuesday said the Hamas' attack on Israel is an 'unadulterated evil unleashed on the world', and added that at least 14 American citizens were killed in the incident.
The IAF has been maintaining that the Rafale jets would significantly enhance its combat capability.
A video file provided by ISA Communications was attached to the statements of the Hamas terrorists, involved in the October 7 attacks, during interrogation, the Authority added.
This comes after the Hamas attack on Israel in which more than 1,400 Israelis were killed, mostly in the initial Hamas attack. In addition, 203 people were believed captured by Hamas during the incursion and taken into Gaza, the Israeli military has said.
Singh received the aircraft at the Rafale fighter jet handing-over ceremony at Merignac in the presence of French Minister of Armed Forces Florence Parly. Members of the top military brass of France as well as senior officials of Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, were also present at the ceremony.
Six Rafale trainer aircraft will carry RB series tail numbers which stand for Air Chief Marshal R K S Bhadauria, the current Chief of Air Staff who played a key role as lead negotiator for the mega deal.
'If Israel had stuck to the peace accords, Hamas would have had no one to fight.'
The aircraft flew out from the airbase in the French port city of Bordeaux and will cover a distance of nearly 7,000 km with air-to-air refuelling and a single stop in the United Arab Emirates before arriving at Ambala airbase on Wednesday, officials said.
In a big boost to India's surveillance capability, the Air Force is likely to receive the first of the three Israeli Phalcon Airborne Warning and Control Systems in the second half of May this year, almost a year and a half behind schedule."Indian Air Force officials have been regularly checking the system. The final details are being worked out which will enable the delivery of the system by the second half of May," defence sources said.
Two lessons from the closure of the Barak investigation: be careful with investigations, and buy from the US or Russia through transparent protocols. Premvir Das examines
Biden said his administration is making sure Israel has what it needs to defend itself and respond to these attacks.
The missile will allow combat pilots to engage ground targets from a standoff range of up to 60 km.
India's historical focus on its continental borders has overshadowed its maritime ambitions, but that is changing quickly, notes Ajai Shukla.
Israel bombed the Gaza Strip for the fourth day on Friday, killing eight Palestinians and tensions heightened after militants fired rockets towards the Jewish state from Lebanon for the first time since the beginning of a confrontation with Hamas.
A week before he turned 63 on June 9, retired General Benjamin 'Benny' Gantz -- briefly his country's prime minister and now its defence minister -- was in New Delhi to meet with his counterpart, Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh.
The ceremony to hand over the first Rafale jet will take place on October 8, the foundation day of the Indian Air Force, the sources said.
NASA says SpaceX was conducting a test firing of its unmanned rocket when the blast occurred.
The Indian Air Force is planning to induct its first self-destructing combat drones from Israel by next year for enhancing its firepower.
Out of 36 Rafale jets, 30 will be fighter jets and six will be trainers.
At least five Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes in Gaza on Saturday as the war entered its 47th day following the collapse of a fragile truce, even as Israel's hawkish foreign minister said that the offensive would continue until "Hamas waves the white flag".
Singh is leaving for Paris on a three-day visit, primarily to receive the first of 36 Rafale fighter jets
'You know why? Because they know they can't vet them, and they don't want Hamas in their neighbourhood'
Israeli troops backed by tanks and drones on Thursday continued to pound Gaza in its operation against Hamas, defying mounting calls for restraint and a United Nations vote to investigate the deadly offensive that has killed 720 Palestinians and 34 Israelis.
The Indian Air Force will now have to wait till March end for Israeli airborne early warning system, whose induction has already been delayed by 16 months. "The Israeli Phalcon airborne early warning and control system (AWACS), which will provide the IAF an eye in the skies to perform surveillance and reconnaissance roles, will arrive in India only by March end," a senior IAF officer told PTI in New Delhi on Friday.
Israel on Tuesday resumed air strikes on Gaza after an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire failed to stop the escalating violence that has killed 192 Palestinians in nine days of fighting as Hamas continued to fire rockets at the Jewish state.
Disciplinary action is being taken against two officers in the shooting down of the chopper.
'If UAV technology is used by the adversary to target VIPs or strategic targets it would be a different ball game altogether,' says Group Captain Murli Menon (retd).
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon has strongly condemned the collapse of a humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, asking Israel and the Palestinians factions to reach an immediate understanding on a durable truce.
'The Balakot mission was an act of political signaling that India is willing to raise the price that the Pakistani State has to pay in order to support terrorism.'
The Indian Air Force prides itself as being the fourth largest in the world. As IAF gets set to enter an era of modernisation, rediff.com gives you a peek inside its hangars.
In rebranding the F-16 into the F-21, Lockheed Martin appears to have accepted what many have warned it for years: That the IAF would never buy a fighter whose very name is associated across India with the Pakistan Air Force which has operated the F-16 since the 1980s.
"The air strikes were a sequel to the constant mortar attacks by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam against the forward defence line of the Army," a statement from the ministry said.
The first five months of 2023 have witnessed at least six major events/trends that augur badly for global economic and socio-political prospects, points out Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
Slain Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had asked the Pakistan Air Force to be ready for attacking India's nuclear facilities, when reports surfaced in 1990 that United States, Israel and India were planning to strike Pakistan's nuclear establishments.
Israel on Monday pressed on with its heavy bombardment of Gaza and foiled major infiltration attempts by Hamas on the 14th day of the conflict that has killed 558 Palestinians and 27 Israelis, even as the United Nations and the United States called for an "immediate ceasefire".
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