MANAMA (Dispatches) – Bahraini regime forces have attacked people protesting against the normalization of ties with the Zionist regime and the opening of the entity’s embassy in the capital Manama.
The regime troops used tear gas and smoke bombs on Friday to scatter hundreds of demonstrators who were marching toward the occupying regime’s embassy in central Manama to voice their indignation about normalization with Tel Aviv and the opening of its mission.
Waving national Palestinian flags, the protesters chanted slogans in solidarity with the Palestinian nation and their legitimate cause before policemen started the crackdown.
Local media reports said the Bahraini regime forces arrested some protesters and took them to an unknown place.
Anti-Zionist sentiments have been running high in the Persian Gulf kingdom since Tel Aviv opened its embassy during a visit by foreign minister Yair Lapid to Manama, last Thursday.
Following the visit, mass rallies were held across Bahrain, where protestors chanted slogans against the ruling Al Khlifah regime, raised placards in denunciation of normalization with the regime and burned the occupying regime’s flags.
Lapid’s arrival at Manama airport marked the first visit by the highest-ranking Zionist official to the tiny Persian Gulf country since both regimes established formal relations last year.
Bahrain’s main opposition group al-Wefaq and the top cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim have already slammed the move by the Al Khalifa dynasty.
Bahrain, along with the United Arab Emirates, signed the peace pact with the regime during an official ceremony hosted by former U.S. president Donald Trump at the White House last September. Sudan and Morocco followed suit later in the year and inked similar U.S.-brokered normalization deals with the regime.
Palestinians condemned the deals as a treacherous “stab in the back” of their cause against the decades-long Zionist occupation.
Palestinians are seeking an independent state in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Al-Quds as its capital.