Israel is seeking to offer Muslim pilgrims direct flights to perform Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
Muslims in Israel currently fly or ride buses to Mecca via Jordan, as the Saudi kingdom does not have formal relations with Israel.
Israel's attempts come months after United States President Donald Trump flew from Riyadh to Tel Aviv in what was considered the first flight of its kind.
The kingdom has no formal diplomatic or commercial relations, nor airline links, with Israel.
Muslims in Israel seeking to perform Hajj usually travel to Mecca from Jordan, either by airplane or through a 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometer) bus trip across the Jordan River and through the Saudi desert.
Israel is now trying to convince Saudi authorities to allow pilgrims to fly directly to the kingdom from Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, according to Israeli Communications Minister Ayoob Kara.
"Reality has changed," Bloomberg reports Kara as saying. "This is a good time to make the request, and I'm working hard on it."
Saudi authorities have not officially commented on the matter and it remains unclear whether negotiations are already underway.
Thousands of Muslims from Israel arrive in the kingdom every year to perform the Islamic pilgrimage. In 2014, Saudi authorities set a quota of 3,651 pilgrims for Arab Israelis.
Muslim pilgrims from Israel were allowed to fly to Mecca via Jordan for the first time in 2014, before which they could only make the journey by bus.
According to Arab News, since the kingdom does not recognize Israeli passports, Jordan issues temporary passports for Arab-Israeli passport holders, allowing them to enter the Kingdom to perform Hajj.
“We understand the problems Arab-Israelis are going through, therefore we try to facilitate their travel to the Kingdom as much as we can," Director General of the Jordanian Passport and Civil Status Department Marqan Qutaishat previously told Arab News.
"We issue them a one-month passport upon their arrival in the Kingdom, which they use when applying for a visa at the Saudi embassy for the Hajj."
Late in May, U.S. President Donald Trump flew directly from Saudi Arabia to Israel in what was widely described as the first direct flight between the kingdom and Palestine's occupying state.
The Washington Post points out that State Department records show that former President George W. Bush traveled between Tel Aviv and Riyadh in 2008, but the records do not clarify whether the flight was direct or if it included a layover.
Most Arab countries do not have airline links with Israel, which continues to occupy and build illegal settlements in Palestinian territories. Many commercial flights operating in the Middle East make detours to avoid flying over Israel and sometimes fly over Jordan or Egypt instead, as the two are the only Arab states to have full relations with Israel.