African state Chad to open embassy in Israel

JERUSALEM (AP) — Chad will open an embassy in Israel, four years after the countries restored diplomatic relations, Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office said Wednesday.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the embassy would be inaugurated on Thursday as part of Chadian President Mahamat Deby’s state visit to Israel.

Netanyahu visited the central African state in January 2019 as part of Israel’s push to establish diplomatic ties with Muslim states. The following year Israel signed normalization agreements with Morocco, Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates as part of the U.S.-brokered “Abraham Accords.”

“These are relations we want to upgrade to new levels, to new heights, and your visit here to Israel and opening an embassy are an expression of that,” Netanyahu said during a meeting with Deby.

Deby was declared head of state in 2021 after the military announced that his father had been killed by rebels after more than three decades in power.

Deby was greeted on the tarmac by Mossad intelligence agency chief David Barnea, the Prime Minister’s Office said.

Deby’s father and predecessor in office, Idriss Deby, visited Jerusalem in 2018. Chad had relations with Israel until 1972, when it terminated diplomatic ties under pressure from other Arab countries.

The desert country is one of the world’s least developed states, according to the World Bank’s Human Development Index, and its government has been accused of widespread human rights abuses and rigged elections.

The Associated Press