The first-ever commercial flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates landed earlier on Monday, carrying high-level delegations from Israel and the United States.

Al Jazeerah reports that top aides to US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were on board the direct flight from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi on Israel’s flag carrier El Al. This is the first time an Israeli commercial plane used Saudi airspace for an overflight, after Riyadh agreed to the Israeli request on Sunday.

While the plane had the word ‘peace’ written on it in English, Hebrew, and Arabic, it was also named after Kiryat Gat, a settlement which had been constructed on the ruins of two ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages, Iraq al-Manshiyya and al-Faluja.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh condemned the flight, saying it was a “clear and a blatant violation of the Arab position towards the Arab-Israeli conflict”. Al Jazeerah reports that Palestinians have been concerned that the UAE’s move would threaten a long-standing pan-Arab stance that called for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory and the acceptance of Palestinian statehood before normal relations with Arab countries.

The US delegation was headed by Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, with Meir Ben-Shabbat heading the Israeli delegation, to add the final touches to the provocative August 13 agreement between Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

O’Brien expects more Arab and Muslim countries to follow Abu Dhabi’s move. Meanwhile, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassen said the UAE-Israel deal went against the position of the Emirati people, and was “in Zionist interests only… fuelling disagreements in the region”.

Umm Muhammed Umar