EUROPE, INDIA TOP BUYERS AS ISRAELI DEFENCE INDUSTRY SEES UNPRECEDENTED WEAPON SALES

Mon 22 December 2025:

Israel’s defence industry is making record profits as its weapons manufacturers are marketing their products as “battle-tested”, using images of strikes on Gaza as proof of their purported success.

Despite an ongoing genocide trial in The Hague and an International Criminal Court warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, countries around the world are buying these weapons in unprecedented amounts.

In 2024, Israel sold weapons worth $15bn, a 13 percent increase compared with the year before. Europe was the top buyer of Israeli weapons, followed by India.

“Armed drones were used in countless attacks against civilians in Gaza,” Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh said, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

“International law experts have long called on countries not to buy or sell weapons to Israel. But so long as profits pile up, it seems Palestinians will continue to be the human lab of modern warfare.”

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Who is buying all these Israeli weapons?

A recent headline in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz details one key relationship central to Israel’s defence strategy: “Why the future of Israeli defence lies in India.” The report explains how many Indian and Israeli arms companies are now established business partners, with Israeli firms building factories in India.

One anonymous Israeli source told the paper: “The Israeli defence industry has become, if not a subsidiary of the Indian defence industry, at least its full partner.”

Indian-made drones have been used in Gaza since 7 October 2023, and the Modi government in New Delhi deployed Israeli drones in its brief war with Pakistan in April.

The Indian-Israeli relationship is fuelled by money, but it is also ideological, with both Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu embracing ethnonationalism and persecuting Muslims.

It is a marriage of convenience – and racism – between Hindu fundamentalism and Zionist supremacy.

Europe was the biggest purchaser of Israeli arms in 2024, accounting for 54 percent of total exports. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 pushed many European nations towards Israeli weapons and missile defence systems. This reliance partly explains the European Union’s reluctance to even partially cut ties with Israel nearly two years into its onslaught in Gaza.

The Israeli arms industry is the ultimate insurance policy for a Jewish supremacist state that knows how many others depend on it. It has a dark history of partnering with some of the most brutal regimes since World War Two – including some that are openly antisemitic.

I estimate that Israel has sold weapons or surveillance equipment to at least 140 countries in the past few decades.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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