Honduras on Thursday opened its embassy in Jerusalem, becoming the fourth country to follow the U.S. move under former President Donald Trump to relocate its chief diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv.

To mark the occasion, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and Israel’s new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett signed several bilateral cooperation agreements in Jerusalem on Thursday.

“I agreed to the opening of embassies with Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández a year ago and today we are seeing the fruits,” Opposition leader Netanyahu stated on Thursday. “I hope that the efforts I began, to transfer embassies to Jerusalem, will not end and other countries will move their embassies to Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years.”

ראש הממשלה, נפתלי בנט, נשיא הונדורס חואן אורלנדו ארננדס ורעייתו, אנה גרסיה קריאס, בטקס חנוכת שגרירות הונדורס בירושלים. 🇮🇱🤝🇭🇳

רה"מ בנט: "ברוך אתה ה', אלוקינו מלך העולם, שהחיינו וקיימנו והגיענו לזמן הזה״. pic.twitter.com/1P6ZiGQfaM

— ראש ממשלת ישראל (@IsraeliPM_heb) June 24, 2021

The U.S. inaugurated its embassy in the city in 2018, and Guatemala, Kosovo and Honduras followed suit. Paraguay opened its embassy in Jerusalem in 2018, but then reversed course months later.

Bennett said that the opening of the Honduran Embassy in Jerusalem, and the planned reopening of the Israeli Embassy in Tegucigalpa, was “another demonstration of the deep friendship and deep connection” between the two countries. Israel previously had an embassy in Honduras until the 1990s.

Hernandez, who visited the holy city in 2019, had pledged to move his country’s embassy to Jerusalem. Israel’s then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in turn pledged to reopen the Tegucigalpa embassy.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem & AP)