MANAMA (Dispatches) --
Bahrainis on Tuesday took to the streets on the anniversary of their 2011 uprising against the Al Khalifa regime to protest a two-day visit by Zionist prime minister Naftali Bennett to the Persian Gulf country.
The demonstrators staged mass rallies in Manama and other cities and towns to mark the eleventh anniversary of the February 14 uprising.
“11 years of patience and steadfastness on the path of truth.. Bahrainis demonstrate in the Muqsha area on the anniversary of the start of the February 14 revolution,” main opposition group, the Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, tweeted.
“Our demands are just… Bahrainis are demonstrating on the anniversary of the start of the February 14 revolution, in confirmation of the continuation of the movement demanding rights,” it said.
Demonstrations have been held in Bahrain on a regular basis ever since a popular uprising began in mid-February 2011, with the participants demanding that the Al Khalifah regime relinquish power and allow a just system representing all Bahrainis to be established.
The overnight demonstrations coincided with Bennett’s visit to Bahrain, the first since they established relations under a 2020 U.S.-sponsored normalization deal.
Bennett met on Tuesday with Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and the prime minister, Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, thanked them for the “warm and generous welcome.”
Bahrain normalized ties with the occupying regime of Israel in late 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords, a series of agreements between Israel and Arab states backed by Washington.
Bennett visited the other Persian Gulf state in the Abraham Accords, the United Arab Emirates, in December.
In an interview with a Bahraini paper published Tuesday morning, Bennett said that the Zionist regime would confront Iran and its allies in the region.
“We will fight Iran and its followers in the region night and day,” Bennett told the state-linked Al-Ayyam broadsheet in an interview published in Arabic.
Israel sees tightening its relationship with its Persian Gulf Arab allies as an important step in its regional struggle with Tehran, Bennett said.
Bennett also met with the commander of the U.S. Fifth Fleet Vice Admiral Bradford Cooper, and praised the cooperation between the U.S. and Israeli militaries, according to a statement from his office.
Footage and photos posted on Bahrain’s

social media networks showed protesters marching, chanting slogans and holding up Bahraini flags in condemnation of the Zionist premier’s visit.
Zionist war minister Benny Gantz also visited Bahrain earlier this month, sparking widespread protests across the country.
Leading cleric and resistance leader Sheikh Isa Qassim “the proud Bahraini people” resolutely denounce Bennett’s visit to their country.
He said Bahrainis will sustain the popular uprising until all their demands are met.
In a televised address from the holy city of Qom on Monday, he urged people in his country to demonstrate perseverance and remain steadfast and united in their struggle against the Al Khalifa regime.
“Faithful peoples will exercise patience in their struggle against oppression. Nobody can emerge triumphant by sitting idle. Victory can only be achieved through unity and solidarity,” he said.
Hussein al-Dihi, the deputy secretary-general of Bahrain’s main opposition group, censured Bennett’s visit to the country and said, “We, the people of Bahrain, will remain defenders of the Palestinian cause and do not accept any normalization deal with the occupying regime.”
“Our nation seeks a dignified life and freedom, and the fight against political and financial corruption and the plunder of public property.”
Dihi also called for an end to all forms of political repression and plunder of national sovereignty, saying the Bahraini people live under the most oppressive authoritarian regime and suppression of freedoms.
“We are outside Bahrain, because our country has become a big prison and the members of Al-Wefaq and the opposition are also detained, and no political work can be done in Bahrain.”
Dihi said, “The Bahraini regime is not worried about regional and international developments, but seeks to engage with the Zionists, while all future developments are going against their interests.”
Palestinian resistance movements Islamic Jihad and Hamas also condemned in separate statements the Zionist prime minister’s visit to Bahrain.
Islamic Jihad said such trips bring nothing but threat and danger to Arab states, calling on the “brotherly Bahraini people and all the peoples of our nation to continue their rejection of normalization”.
“The Bahraini regime’s reception of the criminal Bennett, in light of the continuation and escalation of the Zionist aggression against our people, our families and our land, especially the city of Al-Quds, is a treacherous stab against our people, a free reward and a cover for the occupation, and encouragement to continue its fascist crimes,” it said.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said such visits can never legitimize the regime’s occupation of Palestinian lands.
“Hamas expresses its deep regret for Bahrain’s reception of Bennett, who is responsible for the policies of collective punishment and the crimes of displacement, settlement and racism, which are still being committed against our Palestinian people in occupied Al-Quds, Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, Nablus, Jenin, and the besieged Gaza Strip,” Barhoum said.