For over 10 years now, Maryan Apparel Private Limited in Kerala's Kannur district has been stitching uniforms for the Israeli Police. Recently, the Kerala firm which boasts a 95% women workforce received an order to make 1 lakh more units of uniforms for the cops in Israel. This came against the backdrop of the ongoing conflict between Hamas and the security forces of the country.
Most companies would see this as an opportunity to make a profit. However, the Managing Director of Maryan Apparel Private Limited Thomas Olickal confirmed that his company is backing out from the contract in a show of protest against Israel's war in Gaza.
A native of Thodupuzha, Mumbai-based Thomas said there are close to 1,500 workers in his company. Two top Israeli Police officials along with a quality controller and designer had visited the firm before entering a deal with them, Thomas told Kerala media.
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Launched at Kerala's state-run Kinfra Park here in 2006, Maryan Apparel specialises in uniforms.
"The war in which innocent lives get perished can't be justified. We will finish and deliver the orders we accepted before the war began but will not accept those we got after the fighting began," Thomas Olickal told Malayala Manorama.
The uniforms are dispatched to Tel Aviv with even the trademark emblems attached to its sleeves, the reports added. Apart from the Israeli Police, Maryan Apparels also stitch uniforms for the armies of Qatar and the Philippines, the Kuwait Air Force and the National Guard.
Meanwhile, Israel bombarded the Gaza Strip early Friday, hitting areas where Palestinians had been told to seek safety, and it began evacuating a sizable Israeli town near the border with Lebanon, the latest sign of a potential ground invasion of Gaza that could trigger regional turmoil.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 4,137 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority women, children and older adults.
Over 12,500 were injured, and another 1,300 people were believed buried under rubble, authorities said.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas' deadly incursion.
Roughly 200 others were abducted. The Israeli military said Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives.
In a fiery speech on Thursday to Israeli infantry soldiers on the Gaza border, Gallant, the defence minister, urged them to be ready to move in.
Israel has called up some 360,000 reserves and massed tens of thousands of troops along the Gaza border.
Whoever sees Gaza from afar now, will see it from the inside," he said. It might take a week, a month, two months until we destroy them, he added, referring to Hamas.
