An El Al Boeing 737 carrying senior U.S. and Israeli aides made aviation history by cutting straight over Saudi territory en route to Abu Dhabi on Monday for normalisation talks.
Emer McCarthy reports.
Top aides to U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boarded a historic flight from Tel Aviv on Monday to finalize a pact marking open relations between the Gulf power and Israel.
Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner and Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat among them.
Captain Tal Becker took to the intercom in Arabic, English and Hebrew, using all three languages to announce the flight number and destination.
The El Al Boeing 737 made aviation history by cutting straight over Saudi territory en route to the UAE capital, where Israeli and Emirati officials will hold U.S.-brokered normalization talks on Monday.
A few hours later- touch down in Abu Dhabi.
But it wasn't all smooth sailing- with Kushner suffering his own 'mic drop' moment before taking to the podium.
"I believe this agreement has the ability to change the whole course of the Middle East.
For the last three and a half years I've been working on different issues in the Middle East, there's been a lot of sense of hopelessness, the last decades have had conflict and war and division and what happened here is three great leaders came together and they started writing the script for a new Middle East." Palestinians have been dismayed by the UAE's move, worried that it would weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position that called for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory - and acceptance of Palestinian statehood - in return for normal relations with Arab countries.
Top aides to U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to the United Arab Emirates on Monday..