A spokesman for Somalia’s president said his country’s government is set to consult the parliament on possibly establishing ties with Israel, Israeli media reported on Saturday.

The report by the website Makan could not be verified.

Shortly after his election in May, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud met with senior Israeli officials during a visit to the UAE. His office had denied these reports.

It was also reported that during his first tenure as president he met with former Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu in 2016.

Israel and Somalia – a member state of the Arab League and of the world’s poorest countries - have never shared ties. 

Somalis protested in 2018 outside the US embassy in the capital Mogadishu when president Donald Trump decided to move his country's mission in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

Dubbed the Abraham Accords, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco all normalized ties with Israel in 2020, which Palestinians saw a betrayal of their cause.

There have been increasing reports in recent weeks about possibly more normalization deals between Israel and other countries in the region, such as Saudi Arabia.

Even in Tunisia, successive statements by officials in the North African country have hinted at the existence of plans to establish ties with Tel Aviv. The New Arab