GAZA (Palestine Foundation Information Center ) The Hamas Movement criticized Bahrain on Friday for receiving a new Israeli ambassador while Israel continues its genocide in Gaza and threatens Arab national security.
Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, said, “At a time when countries around the world are expelling Israeli ambassadors over the occupation’s crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing, we see ‘sisterly’ Arab states, like Bahrain, warmly welcoming new envoys of the entity, approving their credentials as if everything was normal.”
Naim argued that this move contradicts the resolutions of the recent Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit, which urged collective action to suspend Israel’s membership in the United Nations. “If not for the sake of Gaza and Palestine,” he added, “then at least as a rejection of the occupation’s declared threats to the joint Arab national security.”
Bahrain formally received the credentials of Shmuel Revel, Israel’s newly appointed ambassador, after the departure of his predecessor about a month into Israel’s war on Gaza that began on October 7, 2023.
According to Bahrain’s state news agency (BNA), Foreign Minister Abdullatif al-Zayani accepted a copy of Revel’s credentials during a meeting at the ministry headquarters on Wednesday.
Revel became Israel’s second ambassador to Bahrain since the two sides normalized relations in 2020.
Bahrain has not clarified the current status of its envoy to Israel, Khaled al-Jalahma, who returned home after Israel’s war on Gaza erupted.
Bahrain signed a normalization deal with Israel in September 2020, appointing Jalahma as its first ambassador to Tel Aviv in August 2021, while Israel appointed Eitan Na’eh as its first ambassador in Manama in December 2021.
On November 2, 2023, Bahrain’s parliament announced that the Israeli ambassador had left Manama, the Bahraini envoy was recalled from Israel, and economic ties with Israel were suspended.
