First Israeli commercial flight lands in Bahrain

The first ever direct commercial flight between Israel and Bahrain landed in Bahrain international airport today, around four weeks after the regional neighbors signed a preliminary agreement to normalise relations between them.

The El Al flight LY973 took off from Israel's Ben Gurion international airport in the capital Tel Aviv at 11:19am local time and landed in the Bahraini capital Manama at 1:33pm local time, according to flight tracker FlightRadar24.

The airliner carried a delegation of US and Israeli officials that were travelling to Bahrain to sign a normalization declaration formally launching full diplomatic relations between the two countries. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's national security adviser, Meir Ben-Shabbat, are leading the delegation, according to the US Treasury Department.

The flight came more than a month after the two countries signed a statement of intent in Washington DC on 15 September. This was alongside the signing of an agreement between the UAE foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Netanyahu, dubbed the "Abraham Accords," which formalized the normalization of ties between them.

Today's signing will see Bahrain become the fourth Arab country to formally recognize Israel, following Egypt, Jordan and the UAE.

The US and Israeli delegations are scheduled to fly to the UAE's capital Abu Dhabi and then back to Israel on 20 October on what will be the first ever direct commercial flight from the Emirati capital to Tel Aviv.

By Sarah Raffoul