The protest turned violent on Friday after troops used tear gas and smoke bombs to disperse hundreds of protesters who marched towards the Israeli embassy in central Manama to express outrage over normalization with Tel Aviv and at the opening of his mission.

Waving national Palestinian flags, protesters chanted slogans of solidarity with the Palestinian nation and their rightful cause before the police began the crackdown.

According to local media, Bahraini regime forces arrested some protesters and took them to an unknown location.

Anti-Israel sentiments have been on the rise in the Persian Gulf kingdom since Tel Aviv opened its embassy during a visit by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid to Manama last Thursday.

After the visit, mass rallies were held across Bahrain, where protesters chanted slogans against the ruling Al Khlifa regime, held up placards denouncing normalization with Israel and burned Israeli flags.

Lapid’s arrival at Manama airport marked the first visit by Israel’s top official to the tiny Persian Gulf country since Israel and Bahrain established formal relations last year.

Bahrain’s main opposition group, al-Wefaq, and the kingdom’s main cleric, Sheikh Isa Qassim, have previously criticized the Al Khalifa dynasty’s decision.

Bahrain, along with the United Arab Emirates, signed the peace pact with Israel in an official ceremony hosted by former US President Donald Trump at the White House last September. Sudan and Morocco followed suit later in the year and signed similar normalization agreements negotiated by the United States with the regime.

The Palestinians condemned the agreements as a treacherous “stab in the back” of their cause against the decades-long Israeli occupation.

Palestinians seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Al-Quds as its capital.