After hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu here for six days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will undertake a daylong visit to Palestine on February 10 — seen as a balancing act to outreach Arab nations. While confirming the visit, diplomatic sources here said the PM will spend a day in the Palestinian capital Ramallah. He will have meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.  He will reach Palestine at the end of his three-nation tour that also includes Oman and the United Arab Emirates, sources said. In UAE, he is expected to attend an international conference.

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Last year, PM Modi had visited Israel — a first by an Indian Prime Minister. He did not visit Palestine at the time — to de-hyphenate Israel and Palestine. But in December, India voted at the United Nations along with 127 other nations against US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

In May last year, during the visit of Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas to Delhi, PM Modi had emphasized India’s commitment ‘’to see the realization of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel”.