2023-08-14 14:33:48
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s international travel will resume in September, following a pause due to the implantation of a pacemaker last month, sources in his office told the Times of Israel Sunday.
Netanyahu will travel to Cyprus on September 3, following his planned July 25 trip was pushed back following surgery he underwent two days earlier. Netanyahu will then hold a delayed three-party summit with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Prime Minister’s Office said.
Netanyahu also postponed a trip to Turkey originally scheduled for the same week. New dates have not yet been set for this trip.
Netanyahu will travel to New York in mid-September to address the UN General Assembly. He might meet US President Joe Biden during this trip, either at the White House or on the sidelines of the UN meeting.
Netanyahu is still awaiting an invitation from the White House since returning to power in late December. After the two leaders spoke in July, Netanyahu’s office released a statement saying Biden had invited him to visit the United States. The White House statement made no mention of an invitation and repeatedly downplayed the importance of the proposed meeting, leading many to believe it would take place in New York and not in Washington.
The Prime Minister will also travel to the United Arab Emirates for the first time at the end of November to attend the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, along with dozens of other foreign leaders. Netanyahu had sought to make the UAE his first overseas destination following returning as prime minister, but the UAE rescinded the invitation following a visit by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, on the Temple Mount, a place of tension.
Left: US President Joe Biden at Raleigh-Durham International Airport in Morrisville, North Carolina on March 28, 2023. Right: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attending the weekly cabinet meeting, in Jerusalem, on March 19, 2023. (Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo; Abir Sultan/Pool/AP)
Netanyahu has several more trips in the works, according to a source in his office who declined to provide further details.
Netanyahu has not flown since his July operation and is waiting the 30 days recommended by his doctors following the pacemaker was inserted.
He will also use, for the first time, the Zion Wing, the Israeli version of Air Force One, during one of his trips, probably to the United Arab Emirates.
“The plane is expected to make its first flight in late October or early November,” said a source familiar with the details of the project. “It is in its final phase in terms of the operational competence of the entire support network. »
Israel Aerospace Workers Union President Yair Katz unveiling the Zion Wing on December 8, 2021. (Israel Aerospace Workers Union)
The official added that the manager of the plane had started his work.
The introduction of the plane had nothing to do with the prime minister’s health, his office said.
The device, worth approximately NIS 750 million, took years to emerge and was to be used by Israeli heads of state for official travel. But former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, and President Isaac Herzog all chose not to use the plane ordered by current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he was closely associated.
Netanyahu was discharged from hospital the same morning following having his pacemaker implanted, which doctors deemed necessary following a potentially fatal heart failure.
A spokesperson for Sheba Hospital in Ramat Gan told the Times of Israel that the hospital would not reveal what the doctors told Netanyahu when he was discharged from the hospital, as this information is confidential.
Doctors who placed the pacemaker later revealed that Netanyahu had suffered a life-threatening “transient heart block.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivering a video message explaining that he is going to the hospital to have a pacemaker fitted, July 23, 2023. (Screenshot)
“A subcutaneous heart monitor implanted a week earlier had detected the danger and issued an alert, which resulted in Netanyahu’s immediate hospitalization and the fitting of a pacemaker,” they said.
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