The agreement signed related to security cooperation between Israel and Bahrain, the first between Israel and Gulf nation, during a stay by the Israeli defence minister to the Kingdom amid raised tensions in the region.
Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates stabled their relations with Israel in 2020 under the US-brokered Abraham Accords, partially out of showed concerns about Iran.
According to the Israeli Defence Ministry, “the MOU (memorandum of understanding) framework would support any upcoming collaboration in the areas of brilliance, military-to-military, industrial cooperation and more.”
Israeli officer further said that the agreement with Bahrain was the first such agreement that Israel had arrived with one of its new partners in the Gulf.
According to the Minister of Defense “Benny Gantz’, “only one year following the signing of the Abrahim agreements, we have gained an important defence agreement that will cooperate with the security of both countries and the resilience of the region.”
It said he and his Bahraini partner signed the document and that Gantz had held conversations with King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa at the royal palace.
Before that day, Gantz visited the US Navy Fifth Fleet’s headquarters in Bahrain.
Bahrain hosts the Fifth Fleet’s headquarters and some operations for CENTCOM, a US military coordination umbrella organisation for the region Israel joined in 2021.
“Against a background of growing marine and aerial threats, our security cooperation is more important than ever,” said Gantz on Twitter after the visit to the naval base.
The visit was decided to have in order to growing tensions in the region driven by the unravelling of the overseas nuclear deal with Iran and the continuous war in Yemen. The US and Israel have blamed Iran for carrying out many attacks on ships in the Gulf, including Israeli-linked cargo transports.
On February 3, the UAE said it intercepted three drones that entered its airspace over unpopulated regions. This is the fourth time this attack is happening in the past few weeks.