Saudi FM urges ceasefire, says Riyadh interested in Israel normalization
Prince Faisal Bin Farhan stresses ties can only come alongside the establishment of a Palestinian state, warns war on Hamas is a risk to regional peace
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan called Tuesday for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas, while noting that Saudi Arabia would “certainly” be interested in a normalization deal with Israel that is linked to a two-state solution.
“Peace and security for Israel is intimately linked with Palestinians’ peace and security,” said Bin Farhan in Davos at the World Economic Forum. “We are fully on board with that.”
He said that Riyadh agrees that “regional peace means peace for Israel,” but “that can only happen with a Palestinian state.”
“What Israel is doing now is putting the prospects for regional peace and security at risk,” Bin Farhan added, referring to Israel’s military campaign against the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip.
He said there must be a ceasefire on all sides, which “should be a starting point for peace” in the region. Bin Farhan also linked attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis against shipping in the Red Sea to the war with Hamas.
Israel and Saudi Arabia were widely believed to be close to inking a historic normalization deal just before the Hamas onslaught of October 7, in which thousands of members of the terror group stormed across the border and murdered some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians. The terrorists also abducted another approximately 240 people of all ages as hostages in Gaza.
Vowing to destroy the terror group, Israel launched a wide-scale military campaign in Gaza, which the Hamas-run health ministry has said killed over 24,000 people since. The figure cannot be independently verified, and is believed to include both civilians and Hamas members killed in Gaza, including as a consequence of terror groups’ own rocket misfires. The IDF says it has killed over 9,000 operatives in Gaza, in addition to some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
The growing death toll in the over three-month-old war has brought Israel heavy criticism from even some of its closest allies, as the international call for a ceasefire has grown. Israeli leaders continue to insist they will not stop fighting until Hamas is wiped out from the Strip.
Last week US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Saudi oasis town of Al Ula, where both figures appeared to indicate that normalization talks were still possible.
“There’s a clear interest in the region in pursuing that, but it will require that the conflict end in Gaza and it will also clearly require that there be a practical pathway to a Palestinian state,” Blinken told reporters before he departed the kingdom for Israel.
The Saudi crown prince, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, stressed the importance of stopping the hostilities in Gaza and forming a path for peace, Saudi state news agency SPA reported. It said the crown prince underscored the need to restore stability and to ensure the Palestinian people are granted their legitimate rights.
Also last week, the Saudi ambassador to the UK, Prince Khalid bin Bandar, told the BBC in a radio interview that Riyadh is still open to establishing ties with the Jewish state as long as it is part of an overall two-state solution.
Technical conversations between the US and Saudi Arabia about a potential normalization agreement have continued amid the Israel-Hamas war, according to two senior US officials and a senior Arab diplomat. The three officials told The Times of Israel last week that while the broader interests of the countries involved have not changed since the October 7 attack, the weight of the “significant Palestinian component” of the deal has gone up.
Whereas Israel was being asked before the war to make a relatively limited commitment to the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state, it will now need to go further in demonstrating that commitment while also accepting the return of the Palestinian Authority to governing the Gaza Strip, which Netanyahu has all but rejected in recent months, the two senior US officials said.
Jacob Magid contributed to this report.
