The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed peace agreements with Israel last month - but in fact, they have never fought against the Jewish state.
In contrast, the agreement with Sudan announced by U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday is with a country long defined as an "enemy state" - a country that hosted the infamous Khartoum Resolution and it’s the Three No's policy, operated alongside Iran and served as a conduit for arms transfers to Hamas.
U.S. President Donald Trump announcing Israel-Sudan peace deal in the Oval Office
(Video: Reuters)
"Decades-old hostility with Israel came to an end," said Sudanese Foreign Minister Omar Gamareldin in the first public statement of a Sudanese official in the local media. However, Gamareldin also stressed that the agreement is still pending approval from its yet-to-be formed legislative council.
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U.S. President Donald Trump announcing Israel-Sudan peace deal in the Oval Office
(Photo: gettyimages)
Here is a timeline of Sudan-Israel relations down the years:
August 1967: Two months after the end of the Six-Day War, which saw Israel serve a crushing defeat to Arab states, Sudan hosted the Arab League summit in the capital of Khartoum. This meeting gave birth to the Khartoum Resolution known as "The Three No's"; No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.
Early 1970s: Mossad agents and IDF officers assist rebels in South Sudan.
1973: Sudanese forces arrive too late and do not participate in the Yom Kippur War.
1982: Defense Minister Ariel Sharon holds a secret meeting the Sudanese president to negotiate terms for the immigration of Ethiopian Jews from Africa to Israel.
Following the links created between Mossad and senior Sudanese officials, thousands of Ethiopian Jews were given permission to travel by foot from Ethiopia to the Sudanese border, from where they immigrated to Israel. A decade later, Ethiopian Jews immigrated through Sudan on Operation Solomon, where they stayed in the camps for an extended period.
The early 1990s: Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is hosted in Sudan, which has issued diplomatic passports to members of the terrorist organization.
1998: Sudan collaborates with al-Qaeda in carrying out terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The African nation agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to the families of the American victims, which led the United States to agree to remove Sudan from its list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.
2003: The Darfur genocide, in which between 350,000 and half a million people died, begins. Many refugees arrived in Israel through the Egyptian border. A senior Israeli official said on Friday that both countries have reached an understanding according to which hundreds of refugees will return to Sudan each year.
January 2009: According to foreign reports, Israeli drones destroy a convoy of 17 trucks that made its way to Egypt and was destined to reach the Gaza Strip and transfer Iranian weapons to Hamas.
Reportedly, 39 people were killed in the bombing.
Hamas said on Friday that the agreement "contradicts Sudan's history."
July 10, 2011: The independent state of South Sudan is established, Israel recognizes it a day after its declaration of independence.
October 24, 2012: Sudanese leaders accuse Israel of attacking the Yarmouk munitions factory, which produced weapons for Hamas. The African nation's foreign minister claimed that the attack was an election spin by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to strengthen the right in Israel in an upcoming election.
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The Yarmouk munitions factory in flames after an attack attributed to Israel
(Photo: EPA)
January 2016: Sudan's then-foreign minister, Ibrahim Ghandour, says that normalization with Israel will be possible only if the United States lifts the economic sanctions it imposed on it.
2017: Israeli diplomat Bruce Kashdan, who served as the Foreign Ministry's secret ambassador to Arab countries, met in Istanbul with senior Sudanese government officials, including the then-head of Sudanese intelligence, and discussed the warming relations with Israel.
April 11, 2019: Sudan's autocrat Omar al-Bashir is ousted after 30 years and placed under house arrest. At the end of 2019, he was convicted of corruption and sent to prison for two years.
February 3, 2020: Netanyahu and Chairman of the Sovereignty Council of Sudan Abdel Fattah al-Burhan meet in Uganda to discuss relations.
August 13, 2020: The United Arab Emirates agrees on a peace agreement with Israel. The Emirates were also among the main promoters of the agreement with Sudan and pressed the country to agree to normalization with Israel.
August 18, 2020: A spokesman for the Sudanese foreign ministry says that his country is in contact with Israel. The ministry denied it immediately afterwards, and the spokesman was fired.
October 23, 2020: Sudan and Israel reach an agreement on normalizing ties.