Morocco inks $1bn spy satellite deal with Israel: Report

The Cradle, July 11, 2024 — 

The Moroccan people have been taking to the streets in support for Palestine and against normalization with Israel since the 2020 Abraham Accords.

Morocco is set to purchase an Israeli spy satellite in a deal worth $1 billion, Moroccan media reported on 11 July. 

According to Israeli sources in Rabat cited by Moroccan news sites Le Desk and Le 360, Israel will provide Morocco with the Ofek 13 spy satellite to replace its Airbus and Thales satellites.

Israel’s state-owned Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) confirmed that it entered into a $1 billion contract to supply one of its systems to an unspecified party. 

IAI said in a regulatory filing that the deal will be implemented over a five-year period. 

Morocco was among the Arab states that normalized relations with Israel in the 2020 Abraham Accords. In 2021, Tel Aviv and Rabat signed a defense pact involving intelligence and cooperation in military industry. 

Last year, Israel recognized Morocco’s illegal occupation in the Western Sahara. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed Israel’s position in a letter to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI. 

Financial Times reported in May, citing Arab and western officials, that Morocco was among several Arab states that were considering joining a US-led initiative for a “peacekeeping force” in Gaza once Israel’s genocidal war comes to an end. 

Publicly, Rabat has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and the implementation of a two-state solution.

As close cooperation between Tel Aviv and Rabat continues, the Moroccan population has taken a firm stance against normalization with Israel – particularly since the start of the war on Gaza in October. 

Pro-Palestinian protests in the country have been common throughout the past several months. 

The Israeli Institute for National Security Studies said in June, citing a survey conducted by Arab Barometer, that Israel has fallen even deeper out of favor across Arab states, including Morocco. 

Twenty-six percent of Moroccans described the events in Gaza as a massacre, 14 percent as a genocide, and another 14 percent as a mass killing.