Somaliland President Visits Israel, Opens Jerusalem Embassy as Red Sea Base Talk Persists

Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, known as "Irro," arrived in Israel this week for a two-day state visit — the most visible step yet in a fast-moving alignment between Jerusalem and the self-declared republic in the Horn of Africa. He was received by President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem and met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar and the ministers of defence, finance and economy, according to Israeli officials and local media.

The centrepiece of the visit was the official opening of Somaliland's embassy in Jerusalem and the signing of a strategic partnership spanning water, agriculture, technology and security. "Today, history is being written," Irro said, framing the trip as the start of "a shared future founded on friendship, cooperation and mutual respect." Netanyahu said Israel sought cooperation "in many other areas."

The visit comes less than six months after Israel, on 26 December 2025, became the first United Nations member state to recognise Somaliland as an independent country — breaking a 34-year impasse since the territory's 1991 secession from Somalia, a split no government had previously acknowledged.

What is driving the rapprochement is geography. Somaliland's roughly 850 kilometres of coastline run along the Gulf of Aden, opposite Yemen and astride the approaches to the Bab el-Mandeb strait — the chokepoint from which Houthi forces have menaced Red Sea shipping. Bloomberg reported in March that Israel was in talks with authorities in Berbera, Somaliland's main port, over a "strategic security partnership" that could include access to a military base. Israeli outlets, including Ynet, reported that security officials had surveyed the coastline in June for a possible forward site about 100 kilometres west of Berbera and roughly 260 kilometres from Yemen — close enough, in theory, to bring Israeli operations to the Houthis' doorstep.

No such base has been confirmed. Somaliland publicly denied in March that it had agreed to host an Israeli installation in Berbera, and neither side announced any basing deal during this week's visit.

The diplomacy has already hardened regional fault lines. Somalia, which considers Somaliland part of its sovereign territory, has warned that any foreign base there would violate its sovereignty. Saudi Arabia signed a defence agreement with Mogadishu in February, and Israel's recognition of Somaliland drew broad condemnation across the Arab and Muslim world, where it is read as rewarding secession and entrenching an Israeli foothold near the Red Sea.

For the Gulf, the stakes are direct. The United Arab Emirates already operates commercial and military infrastructure at Berbera, and the prospect of an Israeli security presence on the southern shore of the Bab el-Mandeb adds a new variable to an already crowded maritime theatre that includes the Houthis, international anti-piracy fleets and the foreign bases clustered at nearby Djibouti.

Whether the embassy and the partnership signed this week translate into a permanent Israeli foothold on the Somaliland coast, or remain a diplomatic and commercial arrangement, is now one of the more consequential open questions in the Red Sea.

The satellite-style image accompanying this report is a concept illustration produced by Qatar Standard to show what such a facility might look like; it is not a photograph of any real or planned base.