Parallel visits this week by an Israeli minister to Saudi Arabia and a Saudi envoy to the Israeli-occupied West Bank have highlighted the fast-warming ties between the Jewish state and the most powerful Arab country.
In the first-ever public visit by an Israeli minister to the Arab kingdom, Haim Katz, the Israeli tourism minister, attended a multilateral tourism conference in Riyadh on Tuesday and Wednesday that was organized by the United Nations.
Simultaneously, the Saudi ambassador to the Palestinians, Naif al-Sudairi, traveled through an Israeli border checkpoint to visit the West Bank, where he met with the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, the organization that administers just under 40 percent of the Israeli-controlled territory.
Experts said the visit by Mr. Sudairi, who is based in neighboring Jordan, was the first known visit by a Saudi official to the region since Israel captured it from Jordan in the 1967 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors. » | Patrick Kingsley, Reporting from Jerusalem | Wednesday, September 27, 2023
