Ghana–Israel Relations

Ghana occupies a distinctive place in Israel's Africa policy. An Israeli consulate opened in Accra in 1956, before Ghana achieved independence—an act that the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs describes as the initiation of Israel's first diplomatic relations with an African country, carried out at the initiative of Golda Meir, then Israel's foreign minister.[1] Israel's early engagement with African countries, including Ghana, combined diplomatic, political, economic, and strategic goals with practical development assistance.[2][3]

The relationship has been shaped by three broad phases: close and wide-ranging cooperation from the mid-1950s through 1973; a rupture followed by the restoration of formal ties; and a contemporary partnership covering agriculture, health, technology, water infrastructure, commerce, and security. A 2007 Pew Research Center survey cited by the Institute for National Security Studies found that publics in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia tended to be more sympathetic toward Israel than toward the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[4]

Israel's connection with Ghana predates Ghanaian independence. An Israeli diplomatic mission opened in Accra in 1956, a year before Ghana became independent in March 1957.[1] Accounts differ over how to date the beginning of formal bilateral relations. One Jewish Virtual Library account says Israel's first African embassy opened in Accra in November 1956, while a 2025 ynet retrospective describes relations as generally good since 1957.[5][6] A 2019 Israeli Embassy commemoration referred more broadly to six decades of relations.[7] These descriptions appear to use different milestones—opening a mission, diplomatic recognition, and the emergence of relations with independent Ghana—rather than establishing a single uncontested date.

Before Ghana's independence, David Ben-Gurion sent a telegram on 11 January 1957 to Kwame Nkrumah after Nkrumah invited him to the independence celebrations. Ben-Gurion described Ghana's independence as "an event of global human importance, a dramatic step forward in human freedom," expressed happiness about cooperation between the countries, and hoped Ghana would serve as an example to other African states.[3] Unable to attend, he sent Golda Meir in his place.

Meir visited Ghana in early 1958 as part of her first tour of Africa, which also included Liberia, Senegal, Nigeria, and Ivory Coast.[3] She returned to Jerusalem enthusiastic and determined to build special relations between Israel and newly independent African states, and made four more African visits during the following five years.[3][8] Ehud Avriel, Israel's first ambassador to Ghana, described the broader policy as an effort to build ties with newly independent states by offering social and material development assistance while seeking African support in international forums, including the United Nations.[3]

At a meeting at the U.S. Department of State on 30 June 1958, Israeli Ambassador Abba Eban reported that Ghana intended to establish its diplomatic mission in Tel Aviv. The discussion followed U.S. representations to Ghana concerning Jerusalem: Washington confirmed that it had drawn the international interest in Jerusalem to the attention of countries considering diplomatic missions in Israel, including Ghana.[9] The location of Ghana's prospective mission was therefore a matter of active diplomacy from the beginning of the bilateral relationship.

The relationship under President Kwame Nkrumah was among the most operationally intensive between Israel and an African state. In a conversation recorded as Nkrumah's second talk with the U.S. president, Nkrumah described improving communications as an area of active government work and cited the Black Star Shipping Lines, which had been formed with Israeli participation. When asked directly whether Ghana was seeking close relations with Israel, Nkrumah confirmed that it was.[10]

Israeli assistance ranged across multiple sectors. Israel helped establish the Black Star steamship company and assisted with training Ghanaian police, air-force pilots, doctors, dentists, and veterinarians.[11] Israel also gave Ghana the first presidential aircraft used by Nkrumah.[12] In 1958–1959, Israel sent 20 experts to Ghana, second in number only to Burma among the countries listed in the program's first year—a measure of Ghana's prominence in the early technical-assistance effort.[3]

Military cooperation was particularly significant. Indian and Israeli officers supervised the formation of Ghana's air force in early 1959, and Israeli air-force instructors trained Ghana's first group of cadet fliers at Accra International Airport in July 1959.[13] Within two years, ten Ghanaians had qualified as pilots.[13] Moshe Dayan also sought to meet Nkrumah and proposed establishing a military academy, while offering weapons and military advice.[8]

Britain persuaded Nkrumah to withdraw Israeli advisers in 1960, and Ghana terminated its Israeli air-force training agreement late that year. Ghanaian pilots nevertheless continued to receive some training at aviation schools in Israel after the formal agreement ended.[13] Cooperation under Nkrumah's successor, Kofi Abrefa Busia, included the beginning of the Accra Sewage Project; it was halted after Busia's government was toppled in a 1972 coup led by General I.K. Acheampong.[12]

During the late 1950s and 1960s, Israel helped establish agricultural cooperatives, youth training programs, medical infrastructure, and joint industrial enterprises in Ghana and other sub-Saharan African countries.[14] Israeli specialists became prominent in construction and engineering projects, and Israeli assistance in Ghana continued essentially until 1973.[11] Nkrumah later became a vocal opponent of Israel and called it "the axis of imperialism," although the source does not specify when this shift occurred.[8] Israeli military activities in Ghana ended after Nkrumah's overthrow.[13]

Ghana broke diplomatic relations with Israel in 1973 in support of OAU member Arab states that were at war with Israel.[13] Approximately 30 African countries terminated relations with Israel during the 1970s, with Malawi, Lesotho, and Swaziland identified as exceptions to the broader continental pattern.[3]

Regional accounts attribute the mass severance to a combination of the Arab–Israeli conflict, Afro-Arab solidarity, Arab economic pressure, promises of cheap oil and financial aid, and an Organization of African Unity resolution sponsored by Egypt that called for severing relations.[15][14] After the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the ensuing oil crisis, most sub-Saharan African countries followed this pattern.[14] These are explanations of the wider African context; the reviewed sources do not provide a comparably detailed Ghana-specific account beyond Ghana's support for OAU member Arab states.

Despite the formal rupture, economic and technical contacts were not entirely extinguished. Israel maintained an "interest officer" in Ghana under the auspices of a foreign embassy and continued to develop economic relations.[3] A 1986 account also lists Ghana among African countries maintaining relations through diplomatic-interests sections, while noting that some states preserved commercial contacts and received Israeli technical assistance without formal diplomatic ties.[15] During the decades without a resident Israeli ambassador, basic relations with Ghana were conducted indirectly through Nigeria.[16][6]

The best-supported chronology distinguishes the restoration of formal relations from the later return of a resident Israeli embassy. The Library of Congress country study states that, after the Israel–PLO accord of September 1993, Ghana restored diplomatic relations in August 1994. Ghana's parliament supported resumption in part because it expected access to Israeli technology, particularly in water engineering, irrigation, sewerage construction, and agriculture.[13] A Jewish Virtual Library timeline dates the restoration specifically to 9 August 1994.[17] The Jerusalem Post additionally reports that Ghana and Israel signed a renewal agreement in 1994 and that Ghana reopened its mission in Tel Aviv in 1996.[11]

In September 2011, Israel reopened its embassy in Accra and resumed direct representation after relations had been handled through Nigeria.[16][6] Ambassador Sharon Bar-Lee presented her credentials to President John Evans Atta Mills. She recalled a local orchestra playing the Israeli national anthem and the Israeli flag flying over the reopened mission.[18][19] Mills noted the presence of Israeli businesspeople in Ghana, while Bar-Lee described the appointment of a resident ambassador as the missing element in otherwise active relations.[16][6]

The terminology used by some accounts can create apparent contradictions: a Jewish Virtual Library page describes diplomatic relations as renewed in 2011, while the 1994 timeline records the formal restoration.[17][18] Read together with the 2011 reports, the evidence supports a sequence in which relations were formally restored in 1994 and direct resident Israeli representation in Accra was reestablished in 2011.

At the time of the embassy reopening, Israel was running two projects in Ghana, one in early-childhood education and one in medicine.[16][6] Following the discovery of oil deposits in Ghana, the country had also become a favored destination for Israeli business investment.[6]

Israel's development-assistance agency, MASHAV, has been a consistent thread in Ghana–Israel relations across multiple political cycles. The second round of Israel–Ghana political consultations was held online on 21 October 2021 and led by Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Political Director Alon Bar and Ghanaian Deputy Foreign Minister Kwaku Ampratum Sarpong. It covered multilateral affairs, MASHAV development support, and trade and economic activity.[20] The Ghanaian deputy minister thanked Israel for contributions to Ghana's agriculture and health sectors, while the embassy listed education, agriculture, health, innovation, entrepreneurship, sanitation, and water among areas of collaboration.[20]

Documented cooperation projects include the University of Ghana Medical Centre, the 3K Water Project, the Accra–Tema Metropolitan Area Rural Water Rehabilitation Project, and Prabon Greenfields Estates in Kumasi.[21] In November 2012, the Israeli government lent $217 million to the University of Ghana to build a 600-bed teaching hospital at Legon. Planned services included trauma and emergency care, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, cardiology, and heart surgery, while Israel's Sheba Medical Centre was to assist the hospital in meeting international medical standards.[22]

In June 2018, Ghana's Ministry of Food and Agriculture announced a memorandum of understanding with Israel under which 50 Ghanaian students would receive one-year paid internships in Israel to train in modern agricultural practices. Ghanaian Agriculture Minister Owusu Afriyie Akoto said the students would be provided with greenhouses after their return, stating: "We are going to make business farmers out of [the students]."[14] The Ghana Israel Business Chambers, inaugurated in 2016 with Tobe Afede XIV as its head and Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams as patron, was established as a vehicle for bilateral commercial engagement.[21]

By 2021, Israel's economic attaché to Ghana, Ayelet Levin Karp, was identifying opportunities for Israeli companies in agriculture, health, water technologies, cybersecurity, fintech, communications, and cleantech. She linked health-sector opportunities to Ghana's plan to build 50 new hospitals and described agro-processing, medical equipment, digital health, cybersecurity, water, and cleantech as priority areas.[23] Israeli companies identified as active in Ghana include Dizengoff, Sonitra, STL, and PW2.[12]

Security has been a recurring dimension of Ghana–Israel relations since the earliest years of cooperation. Beyond the air-force training programs of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Ghana has been identified as one of the African countries whose interest in Israeli knowledge and intelligence capabilities increased in response to the growing Islamist threat in the region, alongside Ivory Coast, Rwanda, and Kenya.[2] This was presented as a regional trend; the reviewed sources do not identify a Ghana-specific intelligence agreement, weapons deal, or named contemporary training program.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman visited Ghana in September 2009 as part of a broader African diplomatic tour and returned in the summer of 2014.[2] In March 2016, Ghanaian Foreign Minister Hanna Serwaa Tetteh made a three-day official visit to Israel at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's invitation. The two sides discussed security cooperation, agricultural development, and the promotion of investment.[18]

In January 2025, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel attended the inauguration of newly elected Ghanaian President John Mahama and met with him to discuss strengthening ties through Israeli expertise in agriculture, technology, and food security.[24] Israel's ambassador, Roey Gilad, identified renewable energy, including solar technology, as another possible area of cooperation. Haskel expressed gratitude for Ghana's support for Israel during the Gaza war, and JNS reported that Ghana had helped Israel retain observer status at the African Union.[24]

After a four-story mall collapsed in Accra in November 2012, killing three people and injuring more than 50, the Israeli Air Force sent a plane carrying medical personnel, engineers, and communications experts to assist. A Magen David Adom team was also dispatched.[22]

Ghana's response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack and the subsequent Gaza war illustrated both the resilience and the limits of its alignment with Israel. An INSS analysis reports that Ghana was among the African countries that condemned the atrocities following the attack.[4] On October 27, 2023, Ghana voted for a Western-sponsored amendment condemning Hamas—one of six African countries to support it, while nine abstained and fifteen cast no vote.[4]

Ghana also voted for the October 27 and December 12, 2023, UN ceasefire resolutions, which called for an immediate ceasefire and did not condemn Hamas.[4] A 2007 Pew Research Center survey cited in the same INSS analysis found that Ghanaian public opinion tended to be more sympathetic toward Israel than toward the Palestinians, in contrast with Senegal, Mali, Tanzania, and Nigeria.[4] Together, the survey and voting record suggest a posture combining comparatively favorable public sentiment toward Israel with support for ceasefire diplomacy. The reviewed sources do not establish Ghana's official rationale for each vote.

In December 2025, seven Ghanaian travelers were denied entry to Israel at Ben-Gurion Airport. Ghana's foreign ministry described their treatment as unjustified and humiliating. Three were deported, while four parliamentary-service staff traveling to a cybersecurity conference in Tel Aviv were detained for approximately five hours before being released following diplomatic intervention.[25][6] The other three travelers had intended to join a Christian pilgrimage.[25]

Ghana responded by deporting three Israelis and summoning Israeli embassy officials to protest the treatment of its citizens.[25][6] Ghanaian Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said Israeli authorities had apologized and called for de-escalation. Ghana rejected an Israeli explanation attributing the incident to insufficient cooperation by Ghana's embassy in Tel Aviv.[25] The governments subsequently said they had resolved the matter amicably.[25]