Biden will land at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday afternoon and depart from it en route to Saudi Arabia on Friday evening. The security arrangements for the visit, officially titled ‘Blue Shield 3’, are set to include more than 16,000 police, border police officers and volunteers. The Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, known as Route 1, will be closed between the airport area’s Shapirim junction and the entrance to Jerusalem, police said in a statement. Traffic in both directions will be diverted to routes 44, 444 and 443. Police warned of traffic disruptions and roadblocks across the center of the country, Jerusalem and highways leading to it during Biden’s visit, adding that details would be posted on Israel Police social media. This will include several temporary road closures within Jerusalem from Wednesday to Friday – according to Biden’s schedule – centered on King David Street, where the US president and his delegation will be staying. Get The Times of Israel Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories By signing up, you agree to the terms Meanwhile, Israeli police and the Israeli Air Force are conducting drills ahead of Biden’s arrival throughout central Israel, focusing primarily on securing travel between Biden’s scheduled destinations. The military exercise was scheduled to end on Sunday night. The police presence will be concentrated in the area of Ben Gurion Airport, in Jerusalem and on the main roads to the capital. Police control centers and hotlines will be active throughout the US president’s visit, the statement said. Featured: Israeli Yasur heavy transport helicopters fly over Israel in an undated photo released by the military on July 7, 2022. (Israel Defense Forces) The statement also emphasized that all private aircraft, including drones, are prohibited from the airspace of Ben Gurion Airport and Jerusalem for the duration of the visit. Biden’s trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia marks his first time in the Middle East as US president, but his tenth visit to Israel overall. While originally scheduled for late June, his trip was postponed until this week due to scheduling issues that an Israeli official said related to the Saudi leg of his trip. Biden accepted Israel’s invitation to visit in late April. According to the latest version of Biden’s schedule, released Thursday, the President will welcome Prime Minister Yair Lapid upon his arrival at Ben Gurion Airport and then tour various security systems with Defense Secretary Benny Gantz, also in airport. The final leg was originally scheduled to take place at Palmachim Air Base, but was moved to the airport on Sunday to save travel time and traffic. The show-and-tell will include an Iron Dome missile defense battery, in a nod to US efforts to grant Israel an additional $500 million in replacement batteries for the system after last year’s Gaza war. Biden’s tour will also include the Iron Beam laser missile defense system, which is designed to work alongside systems like Iron Dome and shoot down smaller missiles. He will then travel to Jerusalem, where he will visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum. On Thursday, Biden is scheduled to hold various meetings with Israeli politicians, including Lapid and Deputy Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Biden and Lapid will then attend a virtual I2U2 forum meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed to discuss food security and other potential areas of cooperation between the UAE and Israel, an official said. White House. US President Joe Biden with then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at the White House in Washington, DC, August 27, 2021. (Sarahbeth Maney-Pool/Getty Images/AFP) Biden will then meet with President Isaac Herzog at his residence in Jerusalem, where he will be awarded the Medal of Honor, and then hold talks with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden will also address the crowd along with Lapid and Bennett at the opening of the Maccabiah Jewish Olympics on Thursday afternoon. On Friday, Biden will visit Augusta Victoria Hospital on East Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, a cornerstone of the Palestinian health care system that works with Israeli health care providers. It will mark the first time a sitting US president has visited a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem that is not the Old City. There, Biden will announce US funding for the East Jerusalem Hospital Network as well as funding from other Gulf states. Biden will then travel to Bethlehem for a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, after which he will announce a series of steps that both the US and Israel plan to take to bolster the Palestinian Authority. The exact details have yet to be finalized, a senior US official said. After his meeting with Abbas, Biden will travel directly to Saudi Arabia, where he is scheduled to attend the GCC+3 summit on Saturday with Gulf Cooperation Council leaders, including representatives from Qatar, Jordan and Iraq . It’s not (only) for you. Supporting The Times of Israel is not a transaction for an online service, such as subscribing to Netflix. The ToI community is for people like you who care about a common good: ensuring that balanced, responsible coverage of Israel continues to be available to millions around the world, for free. Of course, we’ll remove all ads from your page and you’ll get access to some awesome Community-only content. 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