Israel and Bahrain have signed a security cooperation agreement

_{The first between Israel and a Gulf nation}

Israel and Bahrain have signed a security cooperation agreement, the first between Israel and a Gulf nation, during a visit by the Israeli defence minister to the kingdom amid heightened tensions in the region. Bahrain, along with the United Arab Emirates, normalized relations with Israel in 2020 under the US-brokered Abraham Accords, partly out of shared concerns about 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,” the Israeli Ministry of Defense said in a statement on Thursday.

An Israeli official said the agreement with Bahrain was the first such pact that Israel had reached with one of its new allies in the Gulf.

“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,” the Israeli defence ministry quoted Minister of Defense Benny Gantz as saying.

It said he and his Bahraini counterpart signed the document, and that Gantz had held talks with King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa at the royal palace.

Earlier in the day, Gantz visited the US Navy Fifth Fleet’s headquarters in Bahrain.

Bahrain hosts the Fifth Fleet’s headquarters as well as some operations for CENTCOM, a US military coordination umbrella organization for the region that Israel joined last year.

“Against a backdrop of increasing maritime and aerial threats, our ironclad cooperation is more important than ever,” Gantz said on Twitter after the naval base visit.