issue during his trip. have a listen. my views on khashoggi have been absolutely positively clear. and i have never been quiet about talking about human rights. the question the reason i m going to saudi arabia though is much broader, it is to promote u.s. interests, promote u.s. interests in a way that i think that we have an opportunity to r reassert what i think we ve made a mistake of walking away from, our influence in the middle east. with his trip to the middle east, mr. biden embracing one of donald trump s signature achievements, the abraham accords which normalized relations between easy really and several arab countries.
capitol. brittney was always a great teammate and that is why i m here. we miss her so much. translator: the shield which was my only protection, i was lying on the ground all covered in glass. i didn t know if i would survive that moment and you can take a look, the atm machine is completely destroyed. it is just past 11:00 a.m. on a very warm morning here in jeddah. u.s. president biden will be here later today, but right now, he is preparing to meet with the palestinian authority president mahmoud abbas in bethlehem. no major breakthroughs are expected, although the u.s. is also announcing tens of millions of dollars for panhandle
alert until sunday. and that is because of the combination not just of the temperature as we were mentioning but also the dry weather, the high winds there picking up from the east which, you know, all combined create this explosive cocktail that leads to many of the wildfires that we ve been seeing across the country over the past few days. as you mentioned in the lead-in, there has been a dozen or so of those wildfires the past week or so. today a little bit less of those in the country, but still hundreds of firefighters out there battling these blazes. thank you both very much. and we want to take you live now to bethlehem in the west bank where these images have just come into cnn moments ago. u.s. president joe biden meeting with the palestinian authority president mahmoud abbas.
one of them. what is the significance to your mind, what does it signal as far as the kingdom is concerned about the potential for fully normalizing with israel anytime soon? thank you, becky. well, i think this is a major and significant foreign policy achievement for both the biden administration and caretaker prime minister yair lapid who just assumed office two weeks ago and is now cutting this ribbon. and as you said, this thing was in the works for months. the white house has been negotiating quitely, between saudi arabia, israel and egypt on a much broader deal than just the overflights. the overflights are one part. the second part is the deal around two strategic islands in the red sea that are going to be finally going to be totally transferred from egypt
that flight will coincide with saudi arabia s new policy to open its air space to all civilian airlines including israeli airlines. right now he is preparing to meet with the palestinian authority president mahmoud abbas following his visit to a palestinian hospital in east jerusalem. thursday mr. biden met with the new israeli prime minister yair lapid. iran s nuclear ambitions were a key topic, both agreed that iran must never have nuclear weapons. the white house now confirms that president biden will meet one-on-one with the saudi crown prince later today. some u.s. officials have told cnn that the president is likely to bring up the murder of jamal khashoggi, he was the journalist of course who was murdered after entering the saudi consulate in 2018. but when asked about it on thursday, mr. biden stopped short of promising to raise the