Palestine praises Saudi Arabia for rejecting normalisation with Israel

The Palestinian Authority has welcomed Saudi Arabia’s stance in rejecting a normalisation deal with Israel without recognition of a Palestinian state on the nominal border in place in 1967.

“We thank the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its firm position, and efforts to stand alongside the Palestinian people and their just cause,” said Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), in a statement on X.

Saudi Arabia announced yesterday that it will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel until an independent Palestinian state is established. “There will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognised on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops,” said the foreign ministry in Riyadh.

The statement was issued after US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that the US administration has received “positive feedback” that Saudi Arabia and Israel are willing to continue to have normalisation discussions.

Israel has been engaged in a genocidal offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza since 7 October, killing almost 28,000 men, women and children, and wounding 67,000 others.

The Israeli offensive has left 85 per cent of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 per cent of the enclave’s civilian infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

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