Media Wire

Saudi Arabia says interested in Israel normalisation deal despite Gaza war

Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the UK has stated that the country is still interested in normalising relations with Israel after the war in Gaza، adding any normalisation agreement must also lead to the creation of a Palestinian state

A deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia was close before 7 October, Prince Khalid bin Bandar told the BBC.

Despite the “deplorable” casualty figures in Gaza, the kingdom was still interested in establishing ties with Israel, said Bandar, however this would not “come at the cost of the Palestinian people”, he added.

Speaking about the Israeli government, Bandar said: “The problem that we have today with the current government in Israel is there is an extreme, absolutist perspective which does not work to achieve compromise and therefore you are never going to end the conflict.

“The unprecedented level of the violence that has been carried out by both sides – but in particular by what is meant to be a responsible state in Israel – over the past three months, I don’t think I have seen anything like it in my life,” he said. “The numbers are deplorable, absolutely deplorable,” the envoy added.

Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman told Fox News in an interview aired late September that they “get closer” every day to normalization with Tel Aviv. Israeli Premiere Benjamin Netanyahu said during his UN speech last month that the regime was at the cusp of a historic normalization deal with Saudi Arabia.

However, the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip has reportedly blocked further talks.

Washington’s efforts for adding Saudi Arabia to the list of Arab countries that have signed the Abraham Accords come at a critical time when US President Joe Biden is seeking re-election and the US government has been left embarrassed by the kingdom’s bolstering of ties with Iran and Syria, and its further gravitation toward China.

The UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco signed US-brokered normalization agreements with Israel in 2020, drawing condemnations from Palestinians who slammed the deals as “a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people”.

IFP Media Wire

Reports and views published in the Media Wire section have been retrieved from other news agencies and websites, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Iran Front Page (IFP) news website. The IFP may change the headlines of the reports in a bid to make them compatible with its own style of covering Iran News, and does not make any changes to the content. The source and URL of all reports and news stories are mentioned at the bottom of each article.

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