Israel and Morocco sign defence agreement worth $600 million

Jerusalem – Morocco has now signed the Abraham Accord with Israel, following the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Morocco signed a defence agreement worth $600 million with Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) to purchase an air defence system. Under this agreement, it will buy Barak missiles from Israel. It is being said that Morocco has taken this decision given the increasing threat from the neighbour nation, Algeria.

As per the information given by the Israeli news agency, Morocco will purchase the Barak-MX air defence system from IAI. Barak-MX effectively targets drones, helicopters, airplanes, and missiles. Barak-MX, an air defence system, is classified into three versions. The interceptors of this system can hit targets at 35, 70 and 150 kilometres. The air defence system can neutralise cruise and surface-to-surface missiles of the enemy.

Moreover, Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz had visited Morocco in November. The MoU to purchase Barak-MX had been signed during this visit. After that, Boaz Levy, CEO of IAI and former Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz, secretly visited Morocco and completed the necessary formalities for the purchase. In 2020, the then US President Donald Trump had mediated to get Morocco to recognise Israel. Consequently, Morocco joined the Abraham agreement, which initiated defence-related cooperation between Israel and Morocco. Last year itself, Morocco purchased ‘Skylock Dome’, the counter-drone system.

Since the last few months, tension has been augmenting between the North African neighbour countries Morocco and Algeria. A few weeks ago, Algeria accused Morocco of war crimes. Whereas Morocco accused Algeria of preparing to launch drone attacks in the border regions. Due to this threat from Algeria, Morocco purchased weapons worth nearly $35 million from Spain a few months ago.