6 active areas of cooperation, as of 12 May 2026. Click any card for the full brief.
01 DEFENCE DEEP
Long-running and broad-based Defence ties trace to the early 1990s, accelerating once full diplomatic relations were established in 1992. The break-up of the Soviet Union, India's principal Cold War arms supplier, forced New Delhi to diversify just as the Kashmir insurgency was escalating, and Israel emerged as a fast, low-conditionality alternative; a defence attache was posted to Tel Aviv in 1995 and India's first Israeli purchases (two Super Dvora Mk II fast patrol boats) followed soon after.
The 1999 Kargil War was the turning point: Israel supplied laser-guided munitions, UAVs and artillery ammunition on an emergency basis, cementing its reputation as a partner willing to sell when others hesitated. Through the 2000s and 2010s India became one of the largest buyers of Israeli Heron and Searcher UAVs, Barak-1 and the jointly developed Barak-8/MR-SAM missile system, Phalcon AWACS and Spyder air-defence systems - by the mid-2010s roughly 40% of all Israeli arms exports were going to India, its largest single market.
In 2026, India raised the minimum indigenous-content threshold for its preferred 'Buy (Indian-IDDM)' procurement route from 50% to 60%, pushing Israeli suppliers further into Make-in-India joint ventures - including Israel Aerospace Industries' tie-ups with Bharat Electronics and Indian private defence manufacturers - rather than direct imports. Defence trade values are not published in official bilateral statistics, but co-production, not off-the-shelf sales, is now the primary channel.
DRDO AIR DEFENCE
Read brief → 02 WATER & AGRICULTURE DEEP
Drip irrigation, dairy, horticulture Agricultural cooperation began almost alongside diplomatic ties: a 2006 MoU laid the groundwork for the Indo-Israel Agriculture Project (IIAP), formally launched in 2008-09 after India's and Israel's agriculture ministries signed a bilateral work agreement.
IIAP has since run through successive three-year Action Plans - the First (2008-10) starting in Haryana and Maharashtra, the Second (2012-15) expanding training to ten states, the Third (2015-18) adding states such as Mizoram and Andhra Pradesh, and the Fourth (2018-20) scaling up Centres of Excellence (CoEs) that demonstrate drip irrigation, protected cultivation and post-harvest handling. MASHAV, Israel's development-cooperation agency, has led the technical and training side throughout.
More than 30 CoEs are now fully operational across states including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Haryana, Punjab and (from 2022) Jammu & Kashmir, with roughly 17 more in progress. Two dedicated water-technology centres are also being built - in Chennai with IIT Madras and the AMRUT Mission, and in Greater Noida with IIT Roorkee and the National Mission for Clean Ganga - extending the model from farm irrigation into urban and river-basin water management.
03 TECHNOLOGY ACTIVE
Innovation bridge Technology cooperation was formalised in 2005, when India's Department of Science and Technology and Israel's Ministry of Industry and Trade agreed to set up the India-Israel Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund (I4F), which became operational in 2007 to co-fund joint industrial R&D between Indian and Israeli companies in ICT, agri-tech, water and health-tech.
Dozens of joint projects have been funded since, and the relationship broadened into a wider 'Innovation Bridge' concept promoted after PM Modi's July 2017 visit to Israel and PM Netanyahu's reciprocal January 2018 visit to India, drawing in startup ecosystems, incubators and accelerators on both sides - including Israel Aerospace Industries' later NeuSPHERE programme for Indian deep-tech startups. A long-dormant Free Trade Agreement track, first opened in 2010, was revived from 2022 with new Terms of Reference covering technology trade.
FTA/CEPA-style negotiations remain active through 2026 with an early-harvest phase targeted at lower-contention sectors, while a Bilateral Investment Treaty signed in September 2025 gives technology-sector investment on both sides new legal protections alongside the existing R&D funding mechanisms.
R&D FUND STARTUPS
Read brief → 04 TRADE DEEP
Diversifying beyond defence Bilateral trade began from a tiny base - about $200 million in 1992, almost entirely diamonds - reflecting the historic gem-cutting relationship centred on Surat and Ramat Gan, and grew steadily as relations normalised and diversified over the following two decades.
Trade (excluding defence) climbed for years, peaking near $10.8 billion in FY2022-23, with diamonds still the largest single category alongside a growing mix of refined petroleum, chemicals, machinery and electronics. A Bilateral Investment Treaty was signed on 8 September 2025 by India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Israel's Bezalel Smotrich to protect and encourage two-way investment, running alongside the parallel FTA negotiation track.
Trade has since fallen sharply - to about $6.5 billion in FY2023-24 and roughly $3.75 billion in FY2024-25 - a direct consequence of the regional security situation since October 2023 disrupting shipping routes and business confidence. Officials on both sides are treating the BIT and ongoing FTA talks as tools to rebuild volumes once conditions stabilise.
DIAMONDS CHEMICALS
Read brief → 05 PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE ACTIVE
Tourism, education, diaspora People-to-people ties trace to a small but longstanding Indian Jewish diaspora and grew substantially only after 1992, when direct flights, visas and institutional exchange became possible for the first time in decades.
Indian tourist arrivals to Israel rose through the 2010s, reaching close to 70,000 in 2019, driven by budget carriers, religious and heritage tourism, and backpacker circuits - alongside a longstanding flow of young Israelis travelling to India after military service. Academic MOUs proliferated over the same period, expanding student and faculty exchange between universities in both countries.
Arrivals collapsed after the October 2023 war, falling to under 10,000 in 2024; Israel's Ministry of Tourism has set a public target of recovering to pre-war visitor levels by 2027 and has run marketing campaigns aimed specifically at the Indian market. The resident diaspora numbers around 85,000 Indian-origin Israelis - mainly Bene Israel, Cochin and Baghdadi Jewish communities - who remain a steady, if quiet, channel of cultural connection.
TOURISM ACADEMIC
Read brief → 06 MULTILATERAL ACTIVE
I2U2 and Abraham Accords adjacency Multilateral coordination between India and Israel is a recent phenomenon, made possible only after the August 2020 Abraham Accords normalised Israel-UAE relations and opened new minilateral formats in the Gulf.
I2U2 (India-Israel-UAE-USA) grew out of an October 2021 foreign-ministers' call and held its first leaders' summit on 14 July 2022, agreeing an initial slate of 'bankable' joint projects across water, energy, transport, space, health and food security - including a UAE pledge of $2 billion for integrated food parks in India and a hybrid wind-solar-battery renewable energy project in Gujarat. The following year, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) was unveiled at the September 2023 G20 New Delhi summit, explicitly routing through Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia across its shipping, rail, energy and digital-cable pillars.
Both groupings remain active but slow-moving: I2U2's proposed secretariat is still under discussion, and IMEC's implementation is contingent on regional stability, which has been strained since the 2023-24 conflict. India continues to use both formats to keep Gulf-Israel-US coordination alive even as the bilateral Israel relationship faces headwinds on trade and tourism.
