Ron Dermer, Israel's Ambassador to the U.S.
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer on Wednesday evening shared a table with United Arab Emirates (UAE) counterpart Yousef al-Otaiba at a public event in Washington, according to an Israeli press report.
The two diplomats sat together at an annual dinner held by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), an influential pro-Israel think-tank.
According to Israeli daily Haaretz, the seating arrangement reflected the “warm ties” between the two countries.
“It is rare for officials from Arab states that don’t have formal ties with Israel to be seen in public with Israeli officials,” the newspaper reported, going on to note that Egypt’s ambassador to the U.S. -- Yasser Reda -- had also sat at the same table.
UAE officials have not commented on al-Otaiba’s participation in the event.
According to Haaretz, both al-Otaiba and Dermer enjoy considerable influence in Washington due to their close ties with Trump administration officials.
Both ambassadors represent governments that “share a common hostility toward Iran and its proxies in the Middle East”, the newspaper asserted.
As it currently stands, Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab countries that maintain formal relations with the self-proclaimed Jewish state.
The rest, including the UAE, reject normalization with Israel -- on paper at least -- due to the latter’s continued occupation of Arab land captured in 1967.
Israeli naval forces on Thursday detained two Palestinian fishermen off the coast of the blockaded Gaza Strip, according to a local official. “The two fishermen were picked up off the strip’s northern coast,” Nizar Ayyash, head of Gaza's fishermen’s union, told Anadolu Agency.The Israeli authorities, for their part, have yet to comment on the reported incident.Roughly 50,000 Gazans earn their living through fishing, according to the fishermen’s union.Israel refers prisoner to trial for writing kids' bookAfter Israel's devastating 2014 military onslaught on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip (which left more than 2,150 Palestinians dead), Israel began to allow Palestinian fishermen to ply their trade up to six nautical miles off the coast (as opposed to three previously). In May of this year, Israel increased this to nine nautical miles.One month later, however, Israel reduced this again to only three nautical miles in response to the launching of incendiary kites and balloons into Israel by Palestinian activists in Gaza.The kite/balloon attacks came as part of ongoing Palestinian rallies along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone to protest Israel’s 12-year blockade of the coastal enclave.Since the rallies -- which have continued on an almost-daily basis -- began on March 30, more than 190 Palestinians have been martyred by Israeli troops deployed along the other side of the buffer zone.
Israel detains two Palestinian fishermen off Gaza coast