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Israel’s Netanyahu thanks Saudi Arabia for plane landing amid normalization push

A plane carrying Israelis made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. The United States has been pushing for normalization between the two countries, but the kingdom remains publicly committed to Palestinian statehood as a pre-condition.

A traveler walking at the Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah's King Abdulaziz International Airport.
A handout picture provided by the Saudi Ministry of Media on July 25, 2020, shows a masked traveler walking at the Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah's King Abdulaziz International Airport. — Saudi Ministry of Media

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his thanks to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday after a plane carrying Israelis made an emergency landing in the kingdom, constituting another sign of warming relations between the two countries.  

A Tel Aviv-bound Air Seychelles flight carrying 128 passengers was forced to make an emergency landing in Jeddah due to an electrical malfunction. The passengers spent the night at an airport hotel in the Red Sea city and then flew home via a different Air Seychelles plane on Tuesday, The Associated Press reported.

Saudi security forces escorted the passengers to their hotel and treated them warmly, passengers told The AP.

Netanyahu thanked Saudi Arabia in a Hebrew-language video message on Tuesday, saying “I greatly appreciate the warm attitude of the Saudi authorities to the Israeli passengers.”

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