'Don't Want to Speak Before PM's Visit': Inside Assault on 2 Indians in Israel

The assault in Ashkelon took place in December 2025, not February this year, sources told The Quint.

The assault of two Indians in Ashkelon took place in December 2025, not February this year, a source told The Quint.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint) 

The incident of three local youths assaulting two Indian men in Israel's Ashkelon came to light when the country's public broadcaster, KAN 11, shared a video on its YouTube channel on Tuesday, 17 February. The caption read: "'We Are Doing Indians': The Shocking Message on WhatsApp That Led To a Cruel Lynching in Ashkelon."

KAN 11 shared the same video on its website, with a caption alleging racism: "Racist Ambush in Ashkelon. Young Men Stalked Foreign Workers From India and Attacked Them in the Park."

While the news of the assault surfaced only recently, The Quint has learned that it occurred in December 2025, but went unreported in local news.

According to a source close to the victims, they are both construction workers from Uttar Pradesh, and were hired during a mass recruitment drive. They have been living in Israel for around six months now.

When The Quint tried to speak to the victims personally, the source said that the victims did not want to speak ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's upcoming trip to Israel. "They (the victims) are afraid of making a scene before the PM's visit," he said.

PM Modi's visit to Israel on Wednesday, 25 February, will mark his first to the country since 2017.

Incident Took Place in December 2025, Went Unreported

On Wednesday, 18 February, KAN 11's video of the assault was shared by Congress leader Pawan Khera, following which it was reported widely across Indian media as a recent incident.

"Yesterday, two Indian citizens were brutally attacked in Ashkelon, Israel. It was a premeditated racist assault, planned over private chats," Khera said while posting a video of the incident on X, urging External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to urgently look into the matter.

However, two local journalists, one based in Jerusalem and the other in Tel Aviv, confirmed to The Quint that the incident took place in mid-December 2025, and not in February 2026, as reported in Indian and Israeli media.

"The assault took place on 14 December last year. It got reported in the media on 17 February because that's when the matter came up in the judicial magistrate's court," one of them said.

When asked why the news didn't come to light when the incident took place last year, the source said:

"Ashkelon is not that happening a place, so it wasn't reported. When the matter came up in court on 17 February, journalists present there, including from KAN11, got to know about it and reported about it."

Ashkelon is located around 50 km away from Israel's capital Tel Aviv.

Following the media coverage of the incident, the Israeli Embassy in India also put out a tweet on Thursday, 19 February condemning the incident, implying that it took place the day before.

"The attack on two Indian workers yesterday in Ashkelon by delinquents is absolutely unacceptable. The Israeli police have caught the perpetrators and will bring them to justice," they said.

"The Israeli Embassy put out this tweet without having complete information about when the incident transpired," the source claimed.

When The Quint asked Pawan Khera how he came upon the news, he shared a link to the KAN11 video and said:

"We saw the incident on X and then tried to locate it independently. We found the following link, which at that time was just a few hours or one day old."

Pawan Khera to The Quint

The Motive

The Quint has learnt that the three perpetrators, which includes a minor, are naturalised Israeli citizens. The other two, Osher Gethon Yasu and Elior Balata, are 19 years old.

The perpetrators, Osher Gethon Yasu, Elior Balata, and a minor. 

(Photo: Ashkelon Police/Accessed by The Quint) 

The youths had purportedly coordinated the attack over WhatsApp. Their chats in Hebrew have also come to light.

"Listen Elior, soon we will go out and do Indians," one of the messages roughly translates to in English.

Even as media outlets reported the incident as a "racist" attack, the police statement on the incident, released on Tuesday, 17 February following the court appearance of the perpetrators, doesn't mention any racist angle. It instead states that the delinquents "conspired to carry out the attack" and "attacked the victims while attempting to rob their property".

"It is obvious that it was a premeditated robbery. There was nothing racist about it," claimed Yeshaya Rosenman, a freelance journalist based in Israel, while speaking to The Quint.

"In Ashkelon, there are several Indians who work in construction, caretaking, et al. They go to a certain place for shopping. The perpetrators followed two Indians, who had parcels and money on them, while they were on their way home. They finally arrived at a park where they jumped on them, beat them, and attempted to steal their phone and wallet."

Yeshaya Rosenman

The police said they were informed about the incident via a call on their hotline.

"After an expedited investigation, the police arrested the suspects, both 19-year-old residents of Ashkelon. At the end of their interrogation, they were imprisoned, and their detention was extended in court," the Ashkelon Police said in their statement on Tuesday, 17 February.

According to data released by India's Ministry of External Affairs, there are approximately 32,000 Indian workers in Israel as of 2025. To address labour shortages in construction and caregiving following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, India and Israel inked a bilateral framework that facilitated the employment of thousands of Indian workers in Israel through state-led drives and job fairs under the National Skill Development Corporation.

While condemning the assault on X, Khera had claimed that the government's "failure" to generate adequate employment domestically had pushed Indian labourers to seek work in Israel.

"It (the government) celebrates Indo-Israel 'friendship' when sending Indian labourers there. But when our people face barbaric treatment, it falls silent and shrugs off responsibility," Khera said.

(The Quint has reached out to the Indian Embassy in Israel. This article will be updated as and when they respond.)