The Prince of Wales will visit Israel and the Palestinian territories in January on his first official visit, according to an announcement by his official residence, Clarence House, on Wednesday.

Prince Charles’s visit will be only the second official visit to Israel by a British royal family member since the founding of the Israeli state in 1948. Prince Charles’s son, Prince William, was the first to make an official visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories in 2018.

His Royal Highness is visiting Israel to attend the World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem on January 23 in Jerusalem on the invitation of President Reuven Rivlin in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Many other world leaders plan on attending the event, including the kings of Spain and Belgium and the presidents of Germany, France, Italy, Austria, and Russia.

Prince Charles will meet with Rivlin as well as other Israeli officials and will also meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

“Prince Charles has visited Israel twice in the past, and I am pleased that this time he will get to see a bit more of Israel,” stated British Ambassador to Israel Neil Wigan, adding that he is “delighted” about the prince’s visit.

Prince Charles visited Israel twice as a representative of the queen for the funerals of Yitzchak Rabin, in 1995, and Shimon Peres, in 2016.

While in Israel, he visited the grave of his paternal grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, who is buried on Har Hazeisim at the Church of Mary Magdalene. Princess Alice hid a Jewish woman and two of her children during the Holocaust and was recognized as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem.

Prince Phillip has visited his mother’s grave in Israel but the Queen has never been in Israel.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)