Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday that his country will launch a railway project worth 100 billion shekels ($27 billion) to expand the current network, which could bring it to Saudi Arabia in the future.
The project aims to connect remote areas on the periphery with Tel Aviv, and also to reduce the travel time by train to commercial and government centers within the occupied territories to two hours or less.
“I would like to add that in the future we will also be able to transport goods by train from Eilat to the Mediterranean, and we will also be able to connect Israel with Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula via railways,” Netanyahu said in press statements, adding: “We are working on this as well.”
On the other hand, no official comment was issued by officials in Saudi Arabia regarding the railways that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke about.
In turn, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “The idea is that the high-speed railway linking the north and south be ready within the next ten years.”
The plan is essentially a revival of an idea that has been circulating for years, but has made little progress.
In 2010, the Israeli government approved a similar initiative worth billions of shekels to establish a nationwide railway network, but it did not gain traction.
These statements came in the wake of a visit by senior US officials to Saudi Arabia, last week, to push for the possibility of establishing official relations between Riyadh and the Israeli occupation.
Last Thursday, The New York Times published an article by writer Thomas Friedman, in which he said that US President Joe Biden is considering whether to move forward with a security agreement with Saudi Arabia that includes normalizing relations between the Gulf kingdom and the occupation.
And last year, the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority announced the opening of the Kingdom’s airspace to all air carriers that meet the transit requirements, while Washington announced that President Joe Biden welcomed this decision, which includes flights to and from “Israel”.
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2023-07-30 19:53:21
