In a significant development, Israel and Bahrain signed a security cooperation agreement marking the first such agreement between Tel Aviv and a Gulf nation.
The security cooperation agreement was signed during a visit by the Israeli defence minister to the kingdom and comes midst heightened tensions in the region.
Along with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain has normalised its relations with Israel in 2020, partly over shared concerns over Iran.
“The MOU (memorandum of understanding) framework will support any future cooperation in the areas of intelligence, mil-to-mil (military to military), industrial collaboration and more,” said the Israeli Defence Ministry in a statement.
“Only one year following the signing of the (Abraham) Accords, we have achieved an important defence agreement which will contribute to the security of both countries and the stability of the region,” said the Israeli Defence Ministry.
“Against a backdrop of increasing maritime and aerial threats, our ironclad cooperation is more important than ever,” tweeted Israeli Defence Ministry Benny Gantz.
Earlier this week, the UAE had said, it had intercepted three drones that had entered its airspace over unpopulated areas in the fourth such attack in the past few weeks.
The first three assaults were launched by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis in an escalation with a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and which includes the UAE.
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