Manama: A Saudi official has denied claims that his country was issuing pilgrimage visas to holders of Israeli passports.

“The visas granted to the Arabs of 1948 [Palestinian holders of Israeli citizenship] are stamped on Jordanian passports that are given to them by the Jordanian authorities under international accords,” Sami Al Saleh, the Saudi ambassador to Jordan, said.

“Their Israeli passports are replaced with Jordanian passports that are valid for only one trip to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage or Umrah. The visas are processed in less than one week since the number of applications by the Arabs of ‘48 is limited. The pilgrimage permits are delivered by the Jordanian ministry of religious affairs and endowments. After obtaining the entry visas and the pilgrimage permits, the would-be pilgrims fly out from Jordanian airports to either Madinah or Jeddah,” he said, quoted by Saudi daily Makkah on Thursday.

The ambassador was responding to media reports that Saudi authorities allowed holders of Israeli passports to enter the kingdom as long as they had valid entry visas granted by Saudi embassies.

The reports claimed that the officers at the Saudi points of entries focused only on the visas and not on the origin of the passports.

“Once the visa is valid, the holder of the passport, even if it is Israeli, is allowed into the kingdom,” one official was quoted as saying in the reports.

Saudi Arabia’s aviation authorities also dismissed Israeli claims that planes would be carrying would-be pilgrims from Tel Aviv to the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

“The allegations about the direct flights are groundless and lack credibility,” Khalid Al Khaibari, the spokesperson for the civil aviation department, said, quoted by the London-based Al Hayat daily. He added that would-be pilgrims from Gaza could reach Saudi Arabia through Egyptian airports while those in the West Bank arrived in Saudi Arabia from Jordanian airports or drove from Jordanian lands.

Saudi Arabia, like most Arab countries, has no diplomatic or commercial relations with the Israeli regime.

Around 4,500 Palestinians living in Israel undertook the pilgrimage last year.

All physically fit and financially able adult Muslims are expected to go on pilgrimage at least once in their lives.