Marking a growing defence relationship, Army chief General JJ Singh is visiting Israel and is scheduled to hold a wide range of discussions, including training for elite Special Forces, joint exercises and anti-terrorism and infiltration strategies.
General Singh is the first Army chief to visit Israel, which is the second biggest defence partner of India with an annual trade crossing $10-billion-mark.
The Israeli imprint is now visible in almost all spheres of the Indian defence forces and industry as it is world leader in electronic warfare, hitech avionics and upgradation of weapon systems, including guns and aircraft.
Besides holding meetings with his counterparts, General Singh is also expected to explore possibilities of having joint exercises between the Special Forces of the two countries, sources said here on Thursday.
The two countries have never held a joint exercise even after diplomatic relations were established in 1990 and the subsequent years witnessing robust defence ties. In fact, the Israelis supplied weapons from their operating units when India sought equipment at the height of the Kargil war, thereby signalling a trusted relationship.
While IAF chief Air Marshal SP Tyagi and his predecessor S Krishnaswamy had visited Israel, the first visit by an Indian Army chief holds special significance in the backdrop of terrorism and infiltration faced by both the countries.
The Indian Army is operationally deployed for the past 12 years in Jammu and Kashmir and is facing the scourge of terrorism and infiltration. Similarly, the Israeli Army is also fighting terrorism unleashed by Palestinian terrorists, Hizbollah and is surrounded by hostile nations.
Both the armies are keen to learn from each other's rich and varied operational experience and General Singh is likely to firm up an institutional mechanism for this purpose.
The Army chief, meanwhile, is also expected to visit some defence manufacturing establishments, including those manufacturing artillery guns, hitech weapons for the Special Forces, anti-infiltration devices like thermal imagers and specialised mines, sources said.
The Indian Army is using the Israeli manufactured infantry rifles for the past few years in Kashmir and the 750-km long anti-infiltration fence along the Line of Control is fitted with Israeli anti-personnel devices like thermal imagers.
The volume of defence business between the two countries can be gauged from the fact that Israel has already supplied Barak missiles to the Navy, night fighting devices to the Army and the Air Force, improving the radar network of the IAF supplying, besides hitech electronic warfare and information technology. The IAF will also get four Phalcon airborne early warning radar systems (AWACS) early next year thereby enhancing manifold its reconnaissance capabilities.