Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met secretly with Jordanian King Abdullah II last week in Amman, an Israeli official confirmed Thursday, as the two countries announced new agreements on water and trade.

However, the strengthened ties gained by the meeting may already have dissipated as Israeli media reported on Thursday evening that the Jordanians are furious that a report about the meeting was leaked. “It was agreed that the meeting would be kept completely secret,” a senior security official told Channel 12 News. “It embarrassed the king and it will definitely affect the relations between the two countries, despite the ostensibly fresh start.”

Officials from Bennett’s office contacted officials in Amman to inform them that they were not responsible for the leak, Kan News reported.

The Israeli news site Walla, which broke the story, described the meeting as positive and said the two leaders agreed to open a “new page” in relations. An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter on the record, confirmed the meeting had taken place.

According to the agreements reached at the meeting, Jordan will purchase an additional 50 million cubic meters of water from Israel and increase its exports to the West Bank from $160 million a year to around $700 million, the two countries announced in official statements.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid also met his Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi at the King Hussein Bridge between Jordan and Israel.

Safadi called for renewed efforts to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for Israel to halt “illegal” measures that undermine such efforts.

Lapid called Jordan an “important neighbor and partner,” and said Israel would work to strengthen ties and expand economic cooperation. He had highlighted the importance of mending fences with Jordan when he took office last month.

Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli director of EcoPeace Middle East, a Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalist group, said the deal marks a “dramatic increase” in water exports from Israel, which he said had not exported more than 10 million cubic meters per year until now.

He said Jordan still faces a water deficit of 500 million cubic meters a year and would have to import considerably more to ensure a continuous supply for all its needs. Jordan is one of the driest countries on earth and its water shortages are expected to worsen with climate change.

Israel and Jordan made peace in 1994 and maintain close security ties, but relations have been strained in recent years over tensions at Al-Aqsa, Israel’s expansion of Jewish settlements in war-won lands and the lack of any progress in the long-moribund peace process.

Abdullah is set to visit the White House later this month. The Biden administration has called on all sides to take steps that could help lay the groundwork for a resumption of possible peace talks. Israel and the Palestinians have not held substantive peace talks in more than a decade.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem & AP)