Middle East War: Israel signals conditional openness to halt hostilities
By R Anil Kumar
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In a statement, Israel’s envoy to India, Reuven Azar, conveyed a willingness to cease hostilities should Iran reconsider its stance. He underscored that diplomacy is the preferred route, with military measures being considered only as a final option. Azar highlighted the success Israel has had in neutralizing Iran’s missile capabilities while maintaining dominance in the region’s airspace
New Delhi/ Bengaluru March 17, 2026. Israel signalled openness to halting hostilities if Iran were to alter its stance and said that it still preferred a diplomatic resolution to the crisis.
“We are always for diplomacy,” Israel’s ambassador to India Reuven Azar told reporters in New Delhi as the war entered the 17th day. “We are always for diplomacy. Unfortunately, we exhausted diplomacy to the extent that we had to take military action. We hope that diplomacy will be relevant again as a result of our military action.”
He said Israel had been in touch with multiple diplomatic channels in recent days, including the US, its partners in West Asia and some nations with which it does not maintain formal diplomatic ties.
Azar said that through military action “we’ve managed to degrade Iran’s launching capabilities” to a large extent. “Right now, we are controlling the skies of Iran,” he said.
The Israeli envoy said that the purpose of launching military strikes was not to invade Iran but to give Iranians a chance to take over and effect change from the current Islamist regime.
“Neither the United States nor Israel has the intention of invading Iran… We want to give the Iranian people a situation in which they can actually put pressure for a change in policy or for a change of the regime,” Azar said.
