Defense Minister Benny Gantz will visit Rabat later this month to sign security cooperation agreements with his Moroccan counterpart, his office said Tuesday.
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It will be the first trip to the North African country by an Israeli defense minister and the first time such bilateral agreements are signed with an Arab state.
In Israel, the assessment is that Rabat is interested in signing the security deals due to its tensions with Algeria, as the agreements will allow Morocco to procure various military items from Israel and hold joint training exercises out in the open.
Algeria formally broke off diplomatic relations with neighboring Morocco in August, citing a series of alleged hostile acts including Rabat's recent rapprochement with Jerusalem.
Morocco was one of four Arab countries that agreed to normalize ties with Israel last year under the so-called Abraham Accords brokered by former US President Donald Trump's administration, along with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan.
Gantz is expected in Morocco Nov. 24-25. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid visited Morocco in August to inaugurate a diplomatic liaison office in the capital, Rabat.
Israel and Morocco had low-level diplomatic relations in the 1990s, but Morocco cut them off after the Second Intifada erupted in 2000.
The two countries maintained informal ties, with thousands of Israelis traveling to Morocco each year. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews are of Moroccan descent, and the African country is still home to a small Jewish community.
The Abraham Accords have been widely hailed as a breakthrough in Middle East diplomacy, with Israel and US President Joe Biden's administration saying they hope to reach similar agreements with other Arab nations.
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