Sudanese protesters have staged a mass rally to express their outrage and reject the North African country’s decision to move forward with the normalization of ties with the Israeli regime.
During a visit by Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen to Khartoum on Thursday, Israel and Sudan announced the finalization of a deal to normalize their bilateral relations.
“It has been agreed to move forward towards the normalization of relations,” the Sudanese foreign ministry said after a meeting between Cohen and his Sudanese counterpart Ali al-Sadiq.
On Sunday evening, Sudanese demonstrators took to the streets in central Khartoum, chanting slogans against Cohen’s visit and condemning normalization.
They shouted “No peace, no negotiation, no recognition,” “Al-Quds is ours,” and “Normalization is treason.”
The protesters also carried banners reading “No to normalization,” “Palestine is not for sale,” “Al-Aqsa is a belief,” “Khartoum will not betray al-Quds” and “Traitorous rulers do not represent us” in Arabic.
The protest came at the invitation of the Sudanese Against Normalization coalition, which officially launched its activities in February 2020 to put pressure on Sudan’s military leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to stop the normalization process with Israel.
The Sudan People’s Movement–Democratic Revolutionary Current also in a statement voiced its outright rejection of normalization with Israel.
“The right to normalization is decided by the civil government and the Legislative Council. It is only through such a mechanism that any foreign relations would sustain,” the statement noted.
It added that “the issue of normalization with Israel requires a national dialogue that puts Sudan’s supreme interests above all considerations, without any negligence or overlook.”
Earlier, the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement condemned in the strongest terms the Israeli-Sudanese announcement, calling upon Sudanese officials to reverse the measure.
“Hamas believes that this move contradicts the general Sudanese stance, which is against the normalization of ties with the occupying Israeli regime and lends support to the just Palestinian cause,” the Gaza-based group said in a statement released on Friday.
“The development comes at the same time as the far-right Israeli administration has intensified its crimes against the Palestinian nation and killed 35 Palestinians, including women and children, since the beginning of the year. This is while the regime continues to forge ahead with its colonial settlements expansion plans as well as desecration of Christian and Muslim sacred sites,” the Palestinian resistance movement noted.
“We reiterate our rejection of all forms of normalization with the occupying Israeli regime and call on Sudanese authorities to reverse the decision, which runs contrary to the interests of the brotherly Sudanese nation and would only serve Israel’s agenda,” the statement read.
Sudan agreed to take steps to normalize ties with Israel in a 2020 deal brokered by former US president Donald Trump’s administration, alongside normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco known as the “Abraham Accords.”
Sudan’s military, which has been in charge of the country since an October 2021 coup, is seen as having led the move towards establishing relations with Israel.
