YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 29, ARMENPRESS. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's request to attend the funeral of former President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem on Friday was approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a senior Israeli official said, Haaretz reported.

Abbas' office sent on Thursday a request to coordinate his attendance at the funeral, said the spokeswoman for Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the coordinator of government activities in the territories. Mordechai passed on Abbas' request to the Prime Minister's Bureau.

This will be Abbas' first official visit in Israel since September 2010, and the first time he will have shaken hands with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since last November.

Abbas is expected to be accompanied by a delegation of senior Palestinian officials, including Majid Faraj, the head of Palestinian Intelligence; Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the PLO; Civil Affairs Minister Hussein Al-Sheikh; and Muhammad al-Madani, who is in charge with relations with Israeli society in the Palestinian Authority.

Madani's entry permit to Israel has been revoked some three months ago by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

On Wednesday, Abbas sent a condolence letter to Peres' family, in which he said that Peres had been partner to the "peace of the brave" signed by former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1993 and that he had striven for peace until the day he died. The contents of the letter were also published by Abbas in the official Palestinian news agency.