A Saudi national who purportedly assisted the Israeli Journalist, Gil Tamary, trespass into the holy city of Mecca, has been arrested, as confirmed by the local police on Friday.
A spokesperson for the Makkah Regional Police stated that they have reportedly “referred a citizen” to prosecutors for his supposed involvement in “transferring and facilitating the entry of a (non-Muslim) journalist”.
The journalist was identified as an American citizen and his case has also been referred to prosecutors for them “to take the necessary procedures against him in accordance with the applied laws”.
Gil Tamary, an Israeli journalist working for Channel 13, had tweeted a video of himself trespassing into Makkah while accompanied by a local guide. On Monday, Channel 13 aired a 10-minute long video of Tamary sneaking into Islam’s holiest city, in defiance of the ban on non-Muslims.
The video received strong backlash from the international Muslim community, after which Tamary tweeted a clarification that he knew he had acted in violation of Saudi laws but his intent had been to highlight, “a place that is so important to our Muslim brothers and sisters”.
He added, “If anyone takes offense to this video, I deeply apologize”.
The Israeli Minister of Regional Cooperation, Issawi Frej, a Muslim, denounced Tamary’s report as “stupid and harmful” to Israel-Gulf relations.
He remarked,
I’m sorry [but] it was a stupid thing to do and take pride in,” and added, “it was irresponsible and damaging to air this report just for the sake of ratings.
Frej maintained that the report has damaged US-backed efforts to steadily bring Saudi Arabia and Israel closer.
Note that despite increasing backdoor efforts and security communications between both countries, Saudi Arabia still does not recognize Israel as an entity and had refused to join the Abraham Accords 2020 mediated by the US, which has established Israel’s ties with two of Saudi’s neighbors — the UAE and Bahrain.