The route of Israeli flag service EL Al airliner flying over Saudi airspace (Reuters)
Over Saudi Arabia:
On board a packed airliner taking US and Israeli delegates to the United Arab Emirates on Monday, passengers had been welcomed in Arabic in addition to English and Hebrew, a gesture marking the historic first Israeli direct flight from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi.
The El Al Boeing 737 made aviation historical past by chopping straight over Saudi territory en path to the UAE capital, the place Israeli and Emirati officers will maintain US-brokered normalisation talks on Monday.
“Wishing us all salaam, peace and shalom, have a protected flight,” the pilot, Captain Tal Becker, stated on the intercom, in Arabic, English and Hebrew, utilizing all three languages to additionally announce the flight quantity and vacation spot.
Passengers obtained swag luggage stuffed with coronavirus safety gear — disinfectant gel and wipes — and a few donned face masks emblazoned with the Israeli and Emirati flags.
Delegates, who included President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and US nationwide safety adviser Robert O’Brien and his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat, sat cheek by jowl with brokers from the US Secret Service and Israel’s Shin Guess home safety company.
A spokesman for El Al stated the aircraft was outfitted with a C-Music anti-missile system on its rear carriage — customary for the 737s within the service’s fleet.
A request by Reuters journalists to movie contained in the cockpit went up a number of chains of command earlier than being authorized.
“With two nations’ NSAs (nationwide safety businesses) on board, you perceive the sensitivity,” an American delegate stated.
There was additionally a little bit of safety aptitude to coronavirus checks mandated for journalists the weekend earlier than the journey.
Upon arrival for COVID-19 testing, travelling reporters had been informed to offer a code-phrase — “I am right here for the ‘experiment'” — to be fast-tracked by by a consultant of the Israeli prime minister’s workplace.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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