Hamas official slams Bahrain's welcome of new Israeli ambassador

Hamas senior official Basem Naim said on Thursday that Bahrain's credentialing of a new Israeli ambassador in Manama goes against what nearly 60 Muslim-majority nations agreed to do at this week's Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit, which is to isolate Israel from the community of nations. 

"While some countries around the world are expelling the ambassador of the occupying entity due to its genocide and ethnic cleansing, and others are downgrading its representation, and some ministers are even resigning from their governments, we find that 'sisterly' Arab countries (as happened in Bahrain yesterday) are warmly welcoming new ambassadors of the entity, accrediting their credentials, and the scene appears 'normal,'" Naim said in a statement.

This is, he said, "despite the fact [it] contradicts the decisions of the recent Organisation of Islamic Cooperation summit, which called for collective action to 'suspend the entity's membership in the United Nations,' if not for the sake of Gaza and Palestine, then at least to reject the enemy's declared and explicit threats to collective Arab national security".