Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will leave today on a three-nation tour that will take him to Palestine on a short, but hugely symbolic visit before travelling to the United Arab Emirates and Oman. He will wrap up the tour on Monday. "This will be the first-ever Prime Ministerial visit to Palestine from India," PM Modi said in a statement about the visit that New Delhi has expressed as "historic".

From New Delhi, PM Modi will travel to the Jordanian capital Amman and take a chopper ride to reach the Palestinian city of Ramallah a little over 100 km away. The city in the West Bank, which hosts the Palestinian Authority's presidential headquarters, also serves as its de facto capital.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who already met PM Modi in Delhi last year, has welcomed the Indian leader in what he has described as "a significant" visit by a "grand guest". It is a visit that is being keenly watched from across the over 700-km long security barrier edging the West Bank as well. PM Modi's Palestine visit comes just weeks after he hosted Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in Delhi and his home state, Gujarat. Over at least five decades, New Delhi has consistently supported the Palestinian cause, recognising it as a state in 1988. But India's policy towards both nations has undergone a steady shift since the NDA government headed by PM Modi came to power in 2014.