U.S. President Joe Biden's visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) will take place between July 13-15, officials in the ongoing talks between Jerusalem and Washington told Ynet on Sunday.
Biden is expected to arrive at Ben Gurion Airport on the night of July 13 or the next morning where he will be received by the country's top officials. He will then meet with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and President Isaac Herzog and make statements at the end of the meetings.
The U.S. leader will also visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem.
This is the Democrat president's first visit to the Jewish state since assuming office a almost year and a half ago.
Biden will dedicate the last day of his visit to the Palestinian Authority and will visit the West Bank city of Bethlehem where he will meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and will visit the city's Church of the Nativity which holds a prominent religious significance to Christians of various denominations as the birthplace of Jesus.
It has yet to be determined whether Biden's visit would come before or after his historic visit to Saudi Arabia, but Washington is eager to see preliminary steps of rapprochement between Jerusalem and Riyadh and hopes to secure an aviation agreement that would allow Israeli commercial flights to use the Gulf kingdom's airspace en route to the east.
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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Biden, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett
(Photo: AP, AFP, Alex Kolomoisky)
The two countries currently have an agreement that only allows flights hailing from Israel to fly through Saudi airspace to countries that are signatories of the Abraham Accords.
The Abraham Accords is a series of U.S.-brokered agreements that has seen Israel establish diplomatic ties with a host of Muslim-majority nations.