Rwandan president Paul Kagame will land in Tel Aviv tonight for a low-key two day visit to Israel, consolidating remarkably warm but murky ties between the two countries.
The Rwandan government is yet to release a schedule for the trip, the President's first since he came to celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary in 2008.
In March this year Kagame - who will run for a third term in office next month after 98% of Rwandans voted to abolish the previous two term limit - praised Israel during a speech at the AIPAC conference in Washington DC, after becoming the first African leader to speak at the pro-Israel event.
"Rwanda is, without question, a friend of Israel," he said. "Israel is a nation that has beat all odds every step of the way, and that is, to put it in a context, looking at the hostile environment, sometimes the unsympathetic international community, Israel continues to be secure, to thrive and it has invested in its people, it has developed one of the best economies."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Kagame as "my friend" after Rwanda abstained in a Palestinian-engineered Security Council draft resolution to call on Israel to unilaterally withdraw to its 1967 borders.
A 1994 Rwanda genocide memorial guardian stands next to skulls of victims in Kibeho, Rwanda on February 21, 2004
At the AIPAC event, Kagame said Rwandans and the Jewish people shared a similar history of thriving despite a past overshadowed by genocide and war.
In 1994, ethnic tensions in Rwanda culminated in the slaughter of approximately 800,000 people over the course of a few weeks.
Kagame, lauded for maintaining peace and one of Africa's most advanced economies, became president in 2000 but is widely considered to have ruled the country since the end of the civil war.
He won two elections in 2003 and 2010 with over 90% of the vote. However human rights groups have documented mysterious disappearances and arrests of opposition activists and journalists, and in 2014 Canada's Globe and Mail revealed that Rwandans abroad were paid to gun down Kagame critics who had fled abroad.
The next Presidential election is due in August.
Despite Kagame's lauding of Israel's technological prowess, mutual trade between the two states remains sluggish. Last year Israel exported a modest $13 million of goods to the central African state, the bulk of which was electronic and communications equipment, according to Israeli trade figures.
Israel imported a miniscule $13,000 during the same period.
In 2013, $13 million worth of Israeli arms were sold to unknown buyers in Rwanda, according to a database compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, although the statistics do not show any weapons sales since then.
Kagame's trip comes almost exactly a year after Netanyahu flew to Rwanda, where he proclaimed that he was "deeply impressed with Rwanda. It's a vibrant country. It's a resolute country. And you've accomplished amazing things. And these achievements are even more impressive given the horrors that you had to overcome."
Benyamin Netanyahou et Paul Kagame au Rwanda en juillet 2016
In April, Israel's Border Police posted a clip on Facebook showing their instructors helping train local police in Rwanda.
Rwanda is also reported to one of two destinations to which Israel has struck agreements with to offload thousands of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers who came to Israel illegally in recent years.
An investigation last month in Foreign Policy magazine found that the promises made to the asylum seekers that they would gain work rights and be allowed to stay in Rwanda were not being fulfilled and many people were being smuggled out of the country soon after arrival.
Both Israel and Rwanda refuse to confirm any arrangement on the issue.
