Mysterious Flight From Israel to Saudi Arabia Has Media Guessing

(Bloomberg) -- A private jet took off from Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening, landed for a few minutes in Amman, then proceeded to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, leaving Israeli media guessing who was on the plane.

Yossi Melman, who writes for the Maariv daily, tweeted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Mossad spy chief Yossi Cohen may have been on board the flight to the Arab kingdom, which has no diplomatic ties with Israel, possibly to discuss the situation in Syria.

Haaretz’s Avi Scharf tweeted that the trip was “EXtra rare.” He noted that U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper was in Riyadh around the same time and questioned whether the U.S.-registered jet had brought an official for a “snap trilateral.”

The jet took off after about an hour in Saudi Arabia and returned to Israel, the Jerusalem Post reported. The same plane has also made trips between Tel Aviv and Cairo in recent months, it said.

Although Israel has no formal relations with Saudi Arabia, ties are gradually warming up, in part due to shared concerns over Iran’s growing influence in the region. In the absence of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, most of the cooperation has taken place behind the scenes.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alisa Odenheimer in Jerusalem at aodenheimer@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Shaji Mathew at shajimathew@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Michael Gunn

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