From Israel to Kashmir, the New Face of War

In October 2023, Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel, killing civilians with ruthless precision. This month, in the hills of Kashmir, Hindu tourists were singled out and executed by terrorists from the Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Different continents. Different causes. Same cold-blooded logic.

Welcome to the new era of precision terror — a strategy where civilians are targeted not en masse but methodically, to ignite fury without alienating sympathizers, to destabilize nations without uniting the world against them.

In Kashmir’s Pahalgam, TRF gunmen deliberately spared women and children. In Israel’s kibbutzim, Hamas terrorists did not spare anyone . The aim wasn’t just to kill — it was to provoke.

These attacks were not desperate acts. They were carefully calculated moves, meant to fracture societies from within.

In Gaza, Hamas struck as Saudi Arabia was edging closer to Israel. In Kashmir, the killings followed Pakistan’s Army Chief General Asim Munir’s fiery sermon, branding Pakistan the world’s only state “born of the Quran” and calling Kashmir its “jugular vein.” Behind both acts: regimes crumbling under internal collapse, desperate for relevance, looking to export chaos in the name of jihad and resistance.

Pakistan’s situation is dire. A broken economy. Chinese promises of investment drying up. The Taliban — once Pakistan’s creation — now a bellicose neighbor. For Islamabad’s military elite, Kashmir offers one last lever: bloodshed in the name of religion.

The strategic thinking is chillingly clear. By attacking only Hindu men, the terrorists hoped to inflame India’s sectarian wounds, trigger communal violence, and push Delhi into a rash military response — perhaps even reigniting a full-blown India-Pakistan crisis.

Similarly, Hamas bet that Israeli retaliation would splinter Arab solidarity, stall normalization deals, and pull global attention back to the Palestinian cause and probably encourage other Muslim state and non-state actors to unite and attack Israel.

Both bets have largely failed. So far.

Israel’s famously fractious society closed ranks overnight. In India, Muslim leaders across the political spectrum — including sharp Modi critics like AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi — condemned the Pahalgam killings unequivocally, called for public mourning, and blamed Pakistan.

The terrorists underestimated one thing: war-weary publics are no longer so easy to manipulate.

But the danger is not over. Precision terror doesn’t rely on one-off victories. It relies on accumulation — death by a thousand cuts. It is a war of nerves, designed to stretch democracies to their breaking points.

And it’s backed by global powers eager to see America, India, and Israel stumble. Iran props up Hamas. China has long tolerated Pakistan’s terror proxies. Russia, Turkey, and other spoiler states benefit from seeing strong democracies distracted by endless internal fires.

For India, this is an especially delicate moment. The challenge, therefore, is brutal and simple: punish terror without giving it the civilizational clash it craves.

In Israel. In Kashmir. The script is the same. Terror today is not about capturing land. It is about hijacking emotions, destabilizing economies, and forcing democracies to fight themselves from within.

This is the true battlefield of the 21st century.

And it is one India — and the world — must win not just with strength, but with steel-eyed clarity.