Priti Prakash, a travel blogger, had planned a vacation with her family to Dubai, an Instagrammable city of skyscrapers, beach adventures, and pure consumerism in the UAE, months before the war broke out in West Asia. On February 28, she arrived early at New Delhi’s international airport to board an Emirates flight scheduled for that afternoon. She was excited to go to the country known as the ‘land of endless possibilities’.

Soon after the flight took off, Prakash switched on the in-flight entertainment service. She noticed then that most of her co-passengers were glued not to movies, but to CNN’s live coverage of the unfolding situation in the region. Israel and the U.S. had jointly attacked Iran, plunging the region into chaos.

Iran-Israel war LIVE

“It was a strange feeling,” says Prakash. “The war had broken out when I was busy at security check and immigration.”

By the time the aircraft reached the Gulf — an important waterway that is an extension of the Indian Ocean and is bordered by eight countries, including the UAE — Prakash learned that the story had shifted from just Iran to the entire region. It appeared that in retaliation to the attacks by Israel and the U.S., which had killed the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran had hit Qatar, the UAE, and Bahrain, expanding the scope of the war. As a result, Dubai airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, with a record 9.23 crore passengers passing through its terminals in 2024, had also become vulnerable. Everyone on board had started praying.

“The pilot announced that the aircraft had been instructed by flight control to stay out of Dubai’s airspace,” she says. “So, he kept circulating over Oman. After 30-40 minutes of flying aimlessly, we were finally allowed to land in Dubai.”

The war had been long in the making. Israel and Iran have shared an acrimonious past that began immediately with the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Decades of bitterness exploded in June 2025 when the two sides exchanged missiles in the so-called 12-day war. The war of 2026, however, has been unprecedented, as Iran’s retaliation has followed the lines Tehran had promised during the last conflict, when it warned that any further violation of Iran’s sovereignty would draw the entire region into war.

Within the first 24 hours of being attacked, Iran fired missiles and drones at all the U.S. bases located in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. The expatriate community of workers, a vast majority of them blue-collar as well as white-collar professionals from South Asia and Southeast Asia, came within the strike range of missiles and drones from Iran.

Stranded in paradise

After they landed, Prakash and her family frantically began making plans to leave Dubai as soon as possible. By then, the war had already claimed more than 200 lives. This included at least 180 children at a girls’ elementary school in Minab, Iran, which had been bombed.

Dubai, considered a human-created paradise, was filled with the sound of sirens. Anxious people spoke of their fears of falling missiles and debris. Prakash cancelled her plans of going sightseeing and spent most of her time talking to people in the hotel. But planning a way out was difficult: all the flights out had been cancelled. Dubai, an aviation hub, was brought to a standstill as all aircraft had been grounded. Like Prakash, thousands of Indians were stranded in multiple locations in the Gulf.

The UAE government responded with generosity, promising the tourists who were stranded that they would not be thrown out of their hotels. “Hotels received a general order from the government that no one should be thrown out for overstaying,” says Prakash. “But when we asked the hotel, the manager told me that that order was specific only to the capital, Abu Dhabi, and did not apply to the rest of the Emirates.” She says they had to pay more for the extra two days that they had to spend before returning to India.

Stretched to its limits

According to the Ministry of External Affairs, 90 lakh-1 crore Indian expatriates live and work across the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman — constituting the largest foreign workforce in the region. The Indian government issued safety advisories for expatriate workers, but the conflict has also left many Indians travelling in the region for tourism or business, stranded.

Brijmohan Singh Raghuvanshi, a journalist with Sadhna News, was trapped in the Israeli capital, Tel Aviv. He had arrived in Israel to cover Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit just days before the war. Soon after, the outbreak of the war left him stuck in the country.

“When the Prime Minister’s visit ended, we planned to stay a little longer before returning to India. Suddenly, we received emergency alerts asking us to rush to underground bunkers. It came as a surprise,” says Raghuvanshi. He adds that despite being a battle-ready state, Israel was jolted this time as Iranian missiles had managed to evade Israel’s famed Iron Dome, a multi-mission system capable of intercepting rockets, artillery, mortars, precision-guided munitions, aircraft, helicopters, and unmanned aerial vehicles at ranges of up to 70 kilometres.

“We were hearing the sound of missiles being intercepted in the air. At times, some of the blasts sounded like missiles hitting the ground. But no one would tell us whether these hits were causing casualties as Israel is under a state of emergency,” he says. Under such conditions, he explains, it is difficult to get verifiable reports about how the war is affecting the Israeli public. Barring a few handful news outlets such as Ha’aretz, most of the mainstream Israeli media has been unable to provide a clear picture of the ground reality. It is foreign workers in Israel who have been posting on social media about the situation.

Police and rescue services were active on the streets, carrying out operations, but Israeli authorities released no casualty figures from the missile strikes, Raghuvanshi says.

Tired of getting no answers to any of his questions, he hired a cab and requested the driver to take him to a spot where some missiles had fallen on the second and third days of the conflict.

“The driver took me to a place where four large buildings had turned into rubble. We saw rescue services on the spot. They claimed that only one person had died. But looking at the extent of the destruction, it seemed highly unlikely that the casualty figure would be that low,” he says. Raghuvanshi spoke to residents of the area, who told him that the toll was higher.

He says there was a surge in prices across Israel, which has made life harder for Indian workers and students. The prices of essentials such as water and milk have soared since the fighting began. “A bottle of water cost about 12 shekels (₹350) a few days after the war began,” he says.

Ratnadeep Chakraborty, a PhD student at Tel Aviv University, who saw the war in June 2025, is experiencing the current conflict as well. He says he has observed Israel’s operations during both. “The war of June 2025 appeared more intense as it was focused on Israel. This time, there have been fewer hits, but the war is much bigger as the entire region has been plunged into conflict,” Chakraborty says over a call. Like Raghuvanshi, he also speaks of the burden of price rise.

The Indian population in Israel has shot up over the past few years, especially after October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants poured into southern Israel from Palestine, killing some 1,200 people and abducting 251. Israel reduced the number of Palestinians working in its economy. The rise of Indians is mainly because the Israeli economy is absorbing more Indian workers in the agriculture and construction sectors, where there is a demand for labour. According to the Ministry, the number of Indian blue-collar workers in Israel is around 30,000.

Raghuvanshi says the war has stretched Israel’s defence capabilities. On visiting missile impact sites, he found that while Israel may have managed to restrict information about casualties under emergency rules, Israelis have also been victims of the conflict.

Comment | Is India tailing the U.S. in its West Asia policy?

Living in stress

The Indian population in Iran is relatively small, concentrated mostly in Qom, Tehran, and Bandar Abbas, the biggest port of the country.

Annie Mirza, who hails from Lucknow, had got caught, along with her mother, in the 12-day missile war last year. She had gone to Iran on a pilgrimage and was in Qom when the war had started. “This year, the war is much bigger as the Rahbar (Ayatollah Khamenei) was assassinated,” says Mirza, who is concerned about the wellbeing of her relatives in Kuwait, Qom, and Tehran.

Mirza spent considerable time in Iran last year before being evacuated with the help of the Indian embassy. She says the people of Iran are different from what the western mainstream media portrays. “Iranians are a proud people and they believe in a life of dignity. It is important for them to live with their heads held high,” she says.

Her relatives have been unable to contact her often due to an internet outage in Iran and communication restrictions in Kuwait. Kuwait has maintained strong defence ties with the U.S. since its liberation from Iraqi occupation in 1991, but a telecommunications law that gives the government sweeping powers to block content and deny access to the Internet has made staying in touch harder.

“My cousin spoke to me over a WhatsApp call on Thursday (March 12, 2026) and she said the U.S. embassy and the military base were being bombed by Iranian drones from the morning,” says Mirza. Her relatives in Kuwait City are living in stressful circumstances as drones and missiles keep hitting the U.S. base, she says.

Providing protection

While there are no reports of Indians getting hurt in the U.S.-Israeli bombing of Iran, the plight of Indian sailors in merchant navy ships and oil tankers is of concern for the Indian government.

So far, five Indians have died in Iranian drone and missile attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and one is missing (presumed to be dead). At least 35-40 have been injured in attacks, officials from the Ministry said, even as India continues to call for an end to strikes on civilian vessels in the region.

Ashish Kumar, who was the captain of the ship MV SKYLIGHT, was killed when the ship was targeted by a projectile off the coast of Oman. Kumar and another Indian sailor were initially declared missing. Subsequently, the Ministry announced that he had died in the attack. His family, in Bihar’s Bettiah, was informed over email about the circumstances in which he died, but they remain unconvinced that he is no more.

“The government sent us an email saying human remains were found in the captain’s cabin. We need further forensic information before believing the news,” says Ashish Kumar Verma, Kumar’s brother-in-law. Official sources say forensic details about the recovered human remains from the captain’s cabin of the ship can be shared only after more official and legal processes are completed in Oman, which is looking into the matter.

While India continues to hold phone calls with the Iranian foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, the real worry continues to be the sheer size of the expat Indian population that works in the region, who will face a security threat for as long as the war continues. According to officials, it is not possible to evacuate such a large number of people in a brief span of time.

Prakash says the war seems to have surprised the Indian missions in the region. “I visited the Consulate General of India in Dubai and requested for a meeting with the Consul General to get help and updates. There were 50-70 people at the gate but no one came to help. I tried to contact them on WhatsApp, email, and the helpline numbers, but there was no response,” she says.

When she tried to take a photograph of the Indians waiting at the gate, an Indian official forced her to delete it, insisting that she should contact the mission again on email, she says. Despite the prolonged crisis, the expatriate Indian population has not pressed the panic button yet.

This raises the big question of how long the crisis will continue. Zikrur Rahman, former diplomat and a frequent visitor to the Gulf, feels that Iranians are ready for the long haul, while the Arab states in the Gulf are unprepared for any military confrontation with Tehran.

“This war is changing the region. The Americans, who have long provided security for the GCC countries, have proven inadequate,” Rahman says. He argues that Israel’s September 2025 attack in Doha, Qatar, targeting Hamas’s negotiating team, made Arab states doubt the U.S.’s commitment to their security. “They realised the U.S. did not protect them. Now they are paying a heavy price to Iran for hosting U.S. bases.”

By the time Indian visitors return for a desert safari next time, the region would have undergone profound security and political changes, he says.

Well, it took some effort because it was the first time I was writing a book. I found it very useful to be able to immediately write down my thoughts when I thought of something worth putting in a book. As a politician, I wrote speeches, memoranda and articles but never any fiction with this kind of dialogue. Since I’m not a professional writer, I also got some help from Deirdre Nuttall. She was, in a way, my co-writer. After each chapter, she would come over, talk to me, then rewrite it with me to make it more readable, and then I would rewrite it. It was quite a slow process but it worked really well for me and ultimately for the book.

How did you find your voice as a gay man of Irish and Indian heritage, possibly facing homophobia and racism as you grew up in Europe?

That’s a really good question. Thanks for asking me this. This is a bit of a complex topic so I don’t have a straight answer for you but allow me to think about it.

I’m not expecting a straight answer from a gay politician. Go ahead, tell me.

(laughing) You’re so funny! I too don’t have any complicated answer. I grew up as a person of color in Ireland, so I realized very early on that I was different. And being gay added another dimension to it. These two things made me stand out from most of the boys and young men I grew up around. I’m not really sure how I found my voice because I’m very comfortable with who I am right now, being a person of Irish complexion and Indian heritage, and being a gay man, but that wasn’t the case when I was maybe 25 or 30 years old. I need to think about this.

You were 36 and health minister when you found the courage to come out publicly as Ireland was preparing for a referendum to legalize gay marriage. Mental health is still a major challenge for LGBTQ people in India, Ireland and around the world. What would you say to give strength to people struggling with suicidal thoughts?

First, I want to acknowledge that everyone’s experience is different, and it may depend on cultural context. Some people have very supportive families. Others are rejected by their families. I was lucky to come out at a time when my country had become much more liberal. I had support from family and friends. My political party was also supportive. This would not have happened 20 years ago in Ireland or some other parts of the world.

I know a lot of people who have had coming out experiences that were very different from mine but I don’t know a single person who regrets coming out. If I could give any encouragement or advice to people who are struggling, it would be this: Coming out can be a good or bad experience or worse. It may be better or worse than you imagine but I don’t know anyone who regrets that they went ahead and did it. When people are pushed to a bad place in terms of mental health, it is often a result of not being able to open up to themselves and others.

What kind of books did you grow up reading? Many gay people tell in a book how they encountered someone like them for the first time. Was it the same for you?

Not necessary! But, as a young person, fantasy was the genre I enjoyed most. For me, that meant a lot of Roald Dahl’s books and, of course, JRR Tolkien’s. Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I also have fond memories of reading Salman Rushdie’s book midnight’s children When I was in India for two months. When you study for a medical degree in Ireland, as I did, you are encouraged to gain some experience abroad. Many years ago, I spent a summer at KEM Hospital in Bombay (now Mumbai). There was something special about reading Rushdie in that city. Looking back, I don’t think I met any gay or lesbian writers growing up.

Ireland has produced five Booker Prize winners, and around 40 Irish writers have been included in the shortlist and longlist. Why does the government prioritize support for writers through scholarships, mentorship and professional development funds?

This is part of Ireland’s soft power policy. We are a small country that wants to become a cultural superpower. For many people in India, China and Latin America, their first encounter with Ireland is through the culture. Support for art, literature, music, dance and cinema is a good investment for diplomatic reasons but it is also good for people’s lives and their soul.

What are you reading at the moment?

I have more time to read now and I love it. I still read mainly non-fiction, but I’m keen to change that by reading more novels this year. The last book I read was by Colm McCann apeirogon. It is about two fathers, one Israeli and the other Palestinian. Both lose their daughters in the conflict, and their grief brings them together. This is so beautifully written! Before reading this, I didn’t know that the title referred to a shape that is a polygon with infinite sides. Of course, this is one way of looking at the conflict. What I’m looking forward to reading next is a book called For and against a united ireland. It is written by Fintan O’Toole and Sam McBride.

During your session with Georgina Goodwin at the Jaipur Literature Festival, you said that Irish people feel a strong sense of solidarity with Palestinians. What is the reason behind this? How do you see your role in advocating for justice and liberation?

I think it is much easier to be an activist than to be a politician. And, in some ways, I can now be more of an activist than a politician because a politician often has to balance competing interests. Ireland has some very good, strong principles around democracy, human rights and the rule of law, but we also have strong economic ties with the United States, which we don’t want to jeopardize. Furthermore, arguments are not always won by those who shout the loudest. What I have tried to do within the EU is to bring member states closer to our position, which is support for Palestine. But many workers did not understand that nothing would be achieved by rushing things or raising all imaginable demands at once. It was difficult to explain. This happens in queer activism too. Some believe that progress should happen in a gradual manner while others insist that our rights cannot be compromised at all.

Queer activists have been speaking out and writing about how Israel uses its stellar record on gay rights to silence criticism of its human rights violations in Palestine. What are your thoughts on this ‘pinkwashing’?

I think it’s important to acknowledge that, when it comes to LGBT rights, Israel is far more progressive than most countries in the world. When there are UN resolutions supporting LGBT rights, Israel always votes in favor of them and aligns itself with European countries. Arab and Muslim countries usually vote the other way. Tel Aviv Pride is one of the largest pride parades in the world. But Israel’s stellar record on LGBT rights should never be an excuse for war crimes. By the way, Israel does not recognize marriage equality because marriage is governed by Jewish religious law. Same-sex couples in Israel have to leave the country to get married in Cyprus, which is a pity. A few years ago, an Israeli government minister compared sexual relations between gay people to incest. In many ways, Israel is regressing in terms of democracy, rule of law, and human rights.

You have been vocal about your intention to help advance relations between Ireland and India. In India, gay couples do not have the legal right to marry. What lessons can India learn from the Irish experience on marriage equality?

I never go to another country and tell them what they should do. This is a decision for India to take. I would like to tell the Indian people that in the 1990s itself, Ireland decriminalized homosexuality and legalized divorce. Only in the last decade have we allowed marriage equality and abortion. As these changes were taking place, there were people who said that families would be destroyed. Some have changed their minds, some have not. But the truth is that no one has been harmed. Our society has progressed. The right has been won. There are two forms of marriage in Ireland. One of these takes place in a church or mosque or synagogue, and is a private religious affair. And then there is civil marriage, which is legally recognized by the state. It can happen between any two people, including same-sex couples.

What would you say to people who are trying to figure out where you stand politically, whether you’re left or right or somewhere in the center?

I would say to them: Don’t think too much about it because that linear view of politics is too simplistic. I consider political ideology to be three-dimensional. You have people who are very liberal on social questions but may be very conservative on economic policy, and that’s OK. I think it’s important to stick to what you believe in and what’s good for your country, and not get trapped in a framework that doesn’t fully explain the complexity of human thought.

Chintan Girish Modi is a writer, journalist, teacher, artist, literary critic and tree lover.