Kumar Siddhartha, Pune
In an attack by Hezbollah, the Shia militant organization in Lebanon, one Indian was killed while two others were left injured. The incident happened in an orchard in Margaliot, which is near the border with Lebanon in northern Israel, according to a statement released by the Israeli Embassy on Tuesday. According to The Times of Israel, Hezbollah’s anti-tank rocket attack injured seven people in total, including two Thai nationals. This marks the first documented Indian fatality close to Israel’s border with Lebanon in several years.
The Israeli Embassy in India said that the families of the deceased and the injured are in our thoughts and prayers. The wounded are receiving the finest medical care available from Israeli medical facilities. Israel treats all of its citizens, foreign or domestic, equally when they suffer harm or lose their lives as a result of terrorism. They also stated in the statement, “We will be there to support the families and offer them assistance.”
The body of the deceased is expected to reach Kerala within four days, wrote The Hindu in an article. The deceased is identified as Nibin Maxwell, a 31-year-old who is a resident of Vady, Kerala. Nibin’s family stated that he had departed for Israel in January. Nivin, his older brother, works in Israel as well. The family was notified of his passing at midnight on Monday.
The embassy indicated that the Shia terrorist organization Hezbollah targeted “peaceful farm workers who were cultivating at an orchard near the northern village of Margaliot yesterday afternoon.”
Sheeja Anandan, a nurse from Kerala, was injured in a rocket attack during the conflict’s early days in October 2023. Previously, in 2021, another caregiver from Kerala, Soumya Santhosh, was killed in a rocket attack on Ashkelon, near the Gaza Strip.
Following the outbreak of the most recent conflict, a large number of Indian workers in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh were seen queuing up to travel to Israel to fill positions that had become vacant due to a lack of Palestinian workers. The Ministry of External Affairs, on the other hand, has maintained that its advisory urging Indians to be aware of the conflict on the ground remains in effect, particularly after the Indian ambassador to Israel, Sanjeev Singla, was seen requesting on social media to seek shelter from the incoming homemade rockets fired by Hamas against Israeli targets.