Chadian President Mahamat Deby met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday (1 February) ahead of the opening of the central African nation’s embassy in the Jewish state, building on their diplomatic relations, established by late President Idriss Deby Itno, Mahamat Deby’s father, five years ago.
In 2019, during Netanyahu’s last term, the Israeli PM and then-President Idriss Deby Itno announced the reestablishment of diplomatic relations. The elder Deby was killed in 2021 on the battlefield in a fight against rebels and was subsequently replaced by his son as president at the head of a military junta. “Israel’s coming back to Africa and Africa [is] coming back to Israel,” Netanyahu told the Chadian president ahead of the opening of the new embassy in Tel Aviv on Thursday (2 February), building on bilateral relations that were established five years ago, the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said.
Standing beside Deby and referencing Chad’s late President Idriss Deby, Netanyahu said: “It is in our view a tremendously important relationship with a major country at the heart of Africa. It is something that we want to carry to new levels. New heights. Your visit here in Israel and the opening of the embassy are the reflection of that..it’s also part of Israel’s coming back to Africa and Africa coming back to Israel.” As with other sub-Sahara African countries, bilateral relations between Israel and Chad were severed in 1972 following the 1967 Six Day War and pressure by then-Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi.