On Monday, Abdullah bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bahrain, accompanied the Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alon Oshbiz, to a beach in the Mediterranean.
Oshbiz, through his Twitter account, posted a video clip documenting his diving trip with Al Khalifa.
"It gives me great pleasure to go diving with a friend," he commented. "We took the rare opportunity to follow the rules of underwater diplomacy."
"One knows it's true friendship when your partner in peace is your diving buddy."
The Israeli account in Arabic on Twitter, affiliated with the Israeli Foreign Ministry, also published pictures of a snorkeling trip on a beach in the Mediterranean.
"Diplomacy under water and the Bahraini and Israeli flags fluttering in a rare sight," the ministry commented.
Underwater diplomacy and the Bahraini and Israeli flags flapping in a rare scene,
the Director-General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Alon Oshbys, set out with the Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, the day after his arrival in Israel for a refreshing diving trip, taking advantage of the hot weather in the shores of the Mediterranean!
pic.twitter.com/l1B0x358Aq
— Israel in Arabic (@IsraelArabic) August 9, 2021
On Sunday, Al Khalifa began a four-day official visit to Tel Aviv, as part of an intensive process of normalizing relations between the two countries. He met with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, and is scheduled to meet later with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
On the same day, the Joint Coordination Committee between Bahrain and Israel held its first meeting at the headquarters of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Tel Aviv), according to the official Bahrain News Agency.
Al Khalifa said, in a press statement, that this meeting comes in preparation for the political dialogue meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries.
This is the second visit by Al Khalifa to Israel since Manama and Tel Aviv signed an agreement in September 2020 to normalize relations between them.
The two countries later signed dozens of agreements in the economic, tourism, health, banking, technological and aviation fields.
Out of 22 Arab countries, only 6 have declared official relations with Israel: Egypt and Jordan through peace treaties, and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco through agreements to normalize relations.