Israeli delegation makes first open visit to Saudi Arabia

An Israeli delegation attended a UNESCO meeting in Riyadh on Monday, marking the country's first publicly announced visit to Saudi Arabia.

The five-member delegation arrived on Sunday, an Israeli official told AFP, for the meeting to update UNESCO's world heritage list of cultural and historic sites.

"We are happy to be here — it's a good first step," said the official, who did not want to be named given the sensitivities of the visit, during the meeting. "We thank UNESCO and the Saudi authorities."

The team travelled through Dubai, the official said, as there are no direct flights between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and arrived on Sunday.

They received their visas via UNESCO, the United Nations' educational, scientific and cultural organisation.

A UNESCO diplomat said the agency's director-general Audrey Azoulay had been instrumental in securing Israel's participation in Riyadh.

"It's the result of several years of work by Audrey Azoulay to create, in the heart of UNESCO, the conditions for a dialogue between all the states of the region," said the diplomat, who did not want to be named.

Saudi Arabia, which contains two of Islam's holiest sites, does not recognise Israel and did not join the 2020 US-brokered Abraham Accords where Israel established ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.