India’s first chartered flight brought over 200 Indian nationals back home from Tel Aviv on Friday, nearly a week after the latest Israel-Hamas war erupted. “Everyone is scared. We have no idea what would happen there. We had to move to shelters when there were missile attacks. This was not normal,” said Deepak Sharma, a 20-year-old student who was studying physics at a college in north Israel. There are about 18,000 Indian citizens living in Israel, a small percentage of them students, according to India’s External Affairs Ministry. Nearly one-third of them have registered with the Indian embassy ready to fly back home. New Delhi has not heard of any Indian casualties since Hamas launched its incursion Saturday, the ministry said.
