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KIGALI. — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Rwanda on Wednesday for a symbolic stop on his “historic” African tour, boosting ties between two countries with a history marked by genocide.

Welcomed on arrival by Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Netanyahu visited the Kigali Memorial Centre, where more than 250 000 of the at least 800 000 victims of the 1994 genocide are buried in mass graves.

“My people know the pain of genocide as well, and this is the unique bond that neither one of our people would prefer to have,” Netanyahu said at a Press conference after visiting the memorial, alongside Kagame.

“Yet we both persevere despite the pain and despite the horror. We survived, we never lost hope — and you never lost hope.”

Netanyahu said it had also provided the nations with a bitter lesson.

“In difficult times, we must be able to defend ourselves by ourselves,” he said.

Kagame spoke of how the history of genocide had also influenced the two small nations to rely on their citizens.

“We have been formed and shaped to see, to do things in a certain way — but based mainly on the major resource we have,” Kagame said.

“And that is our people, the other resources come after.”

From a pragmatic point of view, Israel is seen by Rwanda as an alternative partner amid increasingly strained relations with traditional allies such as the United States or Britain.

In 2014, when Rwanda sat on the UN Security Council, Kigali abstained from a resolution — ultimately rejected — advocating the end of the occupation of Palestinian territories.

Netanyahu’s visit to Rwanda is part of a four-nation Africa trade and security tour aimed at boosting ties.

“The Rwandan government felt a real affinity with Israel for obvious historic reasons,” said Phil Clark, a Rwanda specialist at London’s SOAS university.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Prime Minister yesterday denied reports of an attempt on his life in Kenya during his heavily guarded African tour this week, saying he knew “nothing” of it.

Netanyahu said he was learning about the reports of an assassination attempt for the first time during a Press conference with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in Addis Ababa. — AFP/AP.