'What is shameful is your deceit': Israeli envoy slams Priyanka over 'genocide' remark

Reuven Azar

Israeli Ambassador to India, Reuven Azar, on Tuesday reacting to Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's 'genocide' remark said-- "What is shameful is your deceit".

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday said the Israeli state is committing "genocide" and slammed the Indian government for standing "silent" as Israel "unleashes devastation" on the people of Palestine.

The Congress general secretary said the "Israeli state murdered over 60,000 people, 18,430 of whom were children".  "It has starved hundreds to death including many children and is threatening to starve millions," she said in a post on X.

"What is shameful is your deceit. Israel killed 25,000 Hamas terrorists. The terrible cost in human lives derives from Hamas’s heinous tactics of hiding behind civilians, their shooting of people trying to evacuate or receive assistance and their rocket fire. Israel facilitated 2 million tonnes of food into Gaza while Hamas tries to sequestrate them, thereby creating hunger. Gaza population has grown 450% in the last 50 years, no genocide there. Don’t buy Hamas numbers," said Azar in a post.

Earlier, Priyanka, referring to the killing of at least five Al Jazeera journalists in an Israeli strike near Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital as “cold blooded murder,” underlined, “the immeasurable courage of those who dare to stand for the truth will never be broken by the violence and hatred of the Israeli state.”

This is not the first time Gandhi has voiced strong condemnation of Israel’s attack on Gaza. She joined a chorus of international criticism against Israel’s military actions earlier this year, after 400 innocent civilians, including 130 children, were killed by them in Gaza.

On Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's social media post on Israel, Israeli Ambassador to India, Reuven Azar, tweets, "What is shameful is your deceit. Israel killed 25,000 Hamas terrorists. The terrible cost in human lives derives from Hamas’s heinous tactics of hiding behind… pic.twitter.com/3DWWiytqYh

— ANI (@ANI) August 12, 2025