Bahrain has joined the United Arab Emirates in striking an agreement to normalise relations with Israel, a dramatic move aimed at easing tensions in the Middle East.
US President Donald Trump tweeted the news after he spoke by phone to both Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White House said.
"This is a historic breakthrough to further peace in the Middle East," the United States, Bahrain and Israel said in a joint statement.
"Opening direct dialogue and ties between these two dynamic societies and advanced economies will continue the positive transformation of the Middle East and increase stability, security, and prosperity in the region," it said.
The United Arab Emirates last month agreed to normalise ties with Israel under a US-brokered deal.
That deal is scheduled to be signed on 15 September at a White House ceremony hosted by Mr Trump and attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
The easing of relations with Israel comes amid a backdrop of shared fears about the threat of Iran to the region.
The Trump administration has tried to coax other Sunni Arab countries to engage with Israel. The most powerful of those, Saudi Arabia, has signaled it is not ready.
Bahrain, a small island state, is a close ally of Saudi Arabia and the site of the US Navy's regional headquarters.
in 2011 Saudi Arabia sent troops to Bahrain to help quell an uprising and, alongside Kuwait and the UAE, in 2018 offered Bahrain a $10 billion economic bailout.
The deal makes Bahrain the fourth Arab country to reach such an agreement with Israel since exchanging embassies with Egypt and Jordan decades ago.
Last week, Bahrain said it would allow flights between Israel and the UAE to use its airspace.
This followed a Saudi decision to allow an Israeli commercial airliner to fly over it on the way to the UAE.
The deal marks a "new era of peace", Mr Netanyahu has said.
"For many long years, we invested in peace, and now peace will invest in us, will bring about truly major investments in Israel's economy - and that is very important," he said in a video statement.
However the Palestinian Authority and Islamist movement Hamas both condemned the normalisation deal as another "stab in the back" by an Arab state and act of "aggression" against their people.
The agreement was "a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people," like the UAE-Israel deal announced last month, Ahmad Majdalani, social affairs minister in the West Bank-based PA, said.
Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, said it was an "aggression" that dealt "serious prejudice" to the Palestinian cause.
