Saudi delegation visits Palestinian territories as Israel and Saudi Arabia

27/9/2023 7:01

        Saudi Arabia's newly appointed envoy to the Palestinian Authority visited the Israeli-occupied West Bank for the first time to present his credentials and confer with Palestinian officials Tuesday, a trip linked to U.S. efforts to normalize ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
        
        The visit by Nayef al-Sudairi, who also serves as the Saudi ambassador to Jordan, is widely seen as an attempt by the kingdom to address the key sticking point in the Saudi-Israeli normalization deal: the Palestinians.
        
        The Saudi government has said it will only normalize ties with Israel if there is major progress toward the creation of a Palestinian state.
        
        Some 16 years after Arab leaders convened in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to reaffirm the Arab Peace Initiative, pledging no peace or diplomatic recognition of Israel without a just settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinians still live under an open-ended military occupation in the West Bank and under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade in Gaza.