Abu Dhabi Crown Prince holds meeting with Israeli president in Abu Dhabi

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has lambasted the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for allowing Israeli President Isaac Herzog to visit the Persian Gulf Arab country as the occupying regime continues with its crimes against Palestinians.

On Sunday morning, Herzog arrived in the UAE on the first such visit, more than a year after Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv signed a US-brokered normalisation agreement that infuriated Palestinians, who condemned it as a stab in the back, and provoked a sharp backlash in the region.

Before leaving for the UAE, the Israeli president said he would be meeting the leadership of the UAE at the personal invitation of Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, claiming that he was carrying a “message of peace to the entire region.”

Herzog will also visit Expo 2020 in Dubai.

En route to the UAE, Herzog's plane flew over Saudi Arabia, which he said was “truly a very moving moment.”

Later in the day, Hamas in a statement condemned the UAE for allowing such a visit, stressing once again its strong rejection of all forms of normalisation with the occupying regime and its leaders.

Hamas, whose statement was carried by the Palestinian Information Center, said such a visit took place as the Israeli regime persistently violates the rights of the Palestinian people in the occupied East al-Quds, the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.

Israel opened its diplomatic mission in Abu Dhabi in June last year, and less than a month later the UAE officially opened its own in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

Palestinians, who seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip with East al-Quds as its capital, view the normalisation deals with Israel as a betrayal of their cause.