Every year since 2010, on September 23, Israel celebrates Haifa Day, honouring the Indian soldiers who fought in the 1918 Battle of Haifa during the First World War. The Palestinian Embassy in New Delhi has written a letter to MPs on September 15 and screened a documentary at its premises on September 18. The crux of both, the letter and the documentary, is Israel’s characterisation of the British occupation of the Palestinian city of Haifa as its ‘liberation’ and its attempts to embed this characterisation in Indian discourse as part of ‘shared history’.The Battle of HaifaThe Battle of Haifa was fought on September 23, 1918, towards the end of World War I, as part of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in which the British, French and Italy fought alongside the Arab Revolt in opposition to the Ottomans, Germans, and Austro-Hungarians. Ottoman troops were supported by German and Austro-Hungarian artillery. The British command, under General Allenby, deployed the 15th Imperial Service Cavalry Brigade which was a military force largely drawn from Indian princely states, Jodhpur, Mysore, and Hyderabad. The Jodhpur Lancers were tasked with the main frontal charge while the Mysore Lancers moved to attack from the east and north, first climbing the steep slopes of Mount Carmel to silence Austrian artillery that would otherwise have cut the advancing cavalry apart. Command of the Jodhpur Lancers on the day fell to Major Dalpat Singh Shekhawat who was killed during the charge. The Ottoman troops broke, fled toward the town square, and surrendered. Liberation or occupationThe central question of the Embassy’s letter to the Parliament is: if the Battle of Haifa was a liberation, what exactly was Haifa being liberated from? “When British military and parliamentary sources describe the operations that culminated in the occupation of Palestine, they employ terms such as “capture,” “conquer” rather than “liberation”. Following the military conquest…the territory was administered under a military administration known as the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA), …Palestine was treated as enemy territory captured by Allied forces and placed under military occupation.”India’s own historical records do not mention any reference to the “liberation of Haifa”. The exact wordings, as the letter states, in the 2014 government publication Indian War Memorials Around the World are: “The fortified town of Haifa fell to a cavalry charge by the Jodhpur Lancersm” and that the 15th Imperial Service Cavalry Brigade “Broke through and took the town.” The Teen Murti Memorial in New Delhi, which commemorates Indian soldiers from the World War I till today, contains no inscription referring to the “liberation of Haifa”The letter stated, “a colonial power in India cannot be a liberation force when it enters Palestine.”Abdullah M.A. Abushawesh, the Palestinian Ambassador to India. The embassy screened a documentary on September 18. Photo: Ramsha Sartaj.A decision not made by IndiaThe letter adds: “Their (Indian soldiers’) service must also be understood within the colonial system in which it occurred…with the participation of thousands of soldiers drawn from its colonies. While recruitment was formally presented as voluntary, it took place within a system in which political and economic power remained concentrated in British hands”. “To retrospectively describe this as ‘Indian soldiers liberating Haifa,'” the letter states, “risks attributing to India’s sovereign… decision that it did not possess the authority to make at the time.” A contradictionThe letter states its position regarding Indian soldiers “with full respect for the sacrifice and memory of Indian soldiers and for India’s sovereign right to commemorate its history and its fallen soldiers.” But it draws a sharp distinction that “despite the enormous sacrifices made by Indian soldiers…Britain responded with the Rowlatt Act, which led only months later to the massacre of Jallianwala Bagh.”The letter also invokes Gandhi: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English.” In 1947, India voted against a UN resolution 181 which assigned Haifa to the Jewish state. “How then, can India, having opposed the allocation of Haifa to a Jewish state ‘Israel’ in 1947, now present the alleged ‘liberation’ of Haifa by its own soldiers as a foundation for historical ties with Israel?”“Official Indian records show soldiers buried at Ramleh, Gaza, Deir el Balah, and Haifa alike, if Haifa constitutes a “liberation,” so should all the others?”, the letter asks. “Such an interpretation would be difficult to reconcile with India’s longstanding friendly relations with these countries”.The Battle of Haifa occurred less than a year after the Balfour Declaration, and the letter places it within the chain of events that led ultimately to the Nakba of the Palestinian people. “If the role of Indian soldiers is retrospectively characterised as the ‘liberation of Haifa,’ it risks associating their role with this broader sequence of events and its political, moral and legal consequences.”Hindutva and this narrativeSince 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party has embedded Haifa into the vocabulary of Indian statecraft. In January 2018, during Netanyahu’s visit to India, Modi and Netanyahu jointly rechristened the Teen Murti Chowk as Teen Murti Haifa Chowk. A year earlier, Modi had become the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel on a bilateral trip and pay tribute at the Indian cemetery. Modi told the Israeli Knesset during his February 2026 visit that “India’s connection to Israel is also written in blood and sacrifice”. The BJP has forged strong connections with Israel rooted in Hindutva ideology, sharing a similar approach to confronting what it characterises as “terrorists”, referring to the perception of Muslims in both countries.The Battle of Haifa carries a significant Muslim political dimension. Many Indian Muslims had strongly opposed fighting against Muslim soldiers under the Ottoman Caliphate through the Khilafat Movement (1919–1924), one of colonial India’s largest mass mobilisations. Presenting Haifa as a foundational symbol of India-Israel friendship can therefore obscure the complex history of Indian Muslims while reinforcing Muslim alienation in India. The Embassy’s conclusion is that India should give “careful and scholarly reflection on the terminology and narratives associated with the Battle of Haifa, so that historical remembrance remains grounded in accuracy, balance and respect for the historical experiences of all concerned.” Ramsha Sartaj is an editorial intern at The Wire.