A plane carrying Israelis returning home from the Indian Ocean island nation of Seychelles made an emergency stop in Saudi Arabia before flying back to Tel Aviv, in what Israel hailed as a show of goodwill amid U.S. efforts to formalize relations between the two countries.
After the plane landed in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose main goal is to strike a deal with Saudi Arabia, seized on the incident to underscore the potential for improved relations.
“I am very grateful for the hospitality of the Saudi authorities towards the Israeli passengers who were in distress on the flight,” he said in a video recorded in Hebrew with Arabic subtitles, pointing to a map of the region behind him. “I really appreciate the good neighborliness.”
An Air Seychelles flight with 128 passengers was forced to land on Monday after an electrical failure.
The Israeli foreign ministry said the passengers stayed overnight at an airport hotel in Jeddah before returning on another plane with the airline.
Air Seychelles flight HM22, an Airbus A320 diverted to Jeddah over the Red Sea on Monday night, data shows. The airline did not respond to a request for comment.
Another Air Seychelles A320 flew from Dubai to Jeddah on Tuesday, picking up passengers and taking them to Tel Aviv. In July 2022, during the visit of US President Joe Biden to Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia lifted the ban on Israeli airspace.
Passengers poured out of Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport late Tuesday, some appearing surprised by the throng of reporters, photographers and party balloons that greeted them.
In interviews with Israeli media, passengers said they had a pleasant experience in Jeddah, with some Saudis even greeting them in Hebrew.
“The reaction of the Saudis to us was very surprising,” one of the passengers, Emmanuelle Arbel, reportedly told 103FM radio station. “They smiled at us and said ‘you’re welcome’. In fact, We didn’t expect this to happen.”
There was no immediate reaction from Saudi Arabia.
While Saudi Arabia is not one of the Gulf and Arab states to normalize relations with Israel under the US-brokered 2020 Abraham Accords, speculation about an imminent deal has grown.
A normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, the most powerful and wealthiest Arab state, has the potential to reshape the region and boost Israel’s standing in historic fashion.
But brokering such an agreement is a daunting task because Saudi Arabia has said it will not formally recognize Israel until the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved.
Israel’s current far-right government, led by Netanyahu, has been blamed for escalating violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, with attacks killing and injuring hundreds on an almost daily basis.
Israel has also made clear that it will continue to expand its illegal settlements in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, despite international criticism and accusations from human rights groups of apartheid.
As far as the Saudis are concerned, they are also apparently looking for defense guarantees and access to American nuclear technology.
Israeli media commentators say efforts to normalize with Saudi Arabia have been severely compromised after Israel announced a meeting in Rome between its foreign minister and his Libyan counterpart.
The statement sparked protests in Libya, which does not recognize Israel, and led to the dismissal of Foreign Minister Najira Mangush.
But Israel’s foreign ministry on Monday denied it was the source of the “leakage” of the meeting between the two ministers, but offered no further explanation.
