Manama: Bahrain has postponed the visit of Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen to the Kingdom next week to September, Israeli media reported.
Neither Bahrain nor Israel have publicly commented on the reason for postponing the visit or on a new date.
As per a report by Haaretz, the postponement was due to Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa not being available in the country next week.
Israeli media speculates that the decision was in reaction to the storming of the national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Thursday, July 27, which sparked strong condemnations in the Arab world.
Cohen was scheduled to be the first senior Israeli minister to visit a Gulf state ally since the formation of Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline new government in October 2022.
Bahrain normalized ties with Israel in 2020, as part of the controversial US-brokered Abraham Accords. The two countries have strengthened ties in a variety of fields, in deals that are collectively worth billions of dollars.
