Prince William has begun the first official visit by a British royal to Israel and the Palestinian Territories, facing the challenge of navigating deep political and religious divides in a Holy Land once ruled by Britain.

William, 36, will see religious sites, honour Holocaust victims, and meet Jewish and Arab youths, as well as Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

A spokesman for the prince, acknowledging the “well-known” and “complex challenges” in the Middle East, said his tour, like other visits abroad by members of the British royal family, will be non-political.

For William – who is travelling solo because his wife Kate, 36, is still on maternity leave after the April birth of Prince Louis – the trip is the most diplomatically sensitive he’s ever tackled.

And according to the Telegraph, he was “faced with settling a debate that has raged for decades” as soon as he arrived at his five-star hotel, the King David Jerusalem.

William was greeted with tea imported from England and a pile of scones freshly baked just for him, said Sheldon Ritz, the hotel’s director of operations.

“We heard that there’s a big debate in England about whether you put the cream or the jam on first, so we’ll leave them to the side and let the Prince decide,” Mr Ritz told the Jewish News.

The scone debate is familiar to the royals. Earlier this year, Prince Charles quizzed a Cornwall boy eating a scone loaded with cream first, then jam. “Have you got that the right way around?” he asked.

Prince William becomes the first member of the British Royal Family to make an official visit to Israel #RoyalVisitIsrael pic.twitter.com/ujZOlcCIIE

— Rebecca English (@RE_DailyMail) June 25, 2018

In Jerusalem, the holy city at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the prince will view its walled Old City from the Mount of Olives during his four-day trip.

William, who flew into Israel from Jordan, will also visit the Church of St Mary Magdalene and the tomb of his great-grandmother, Princess Alice, who sheltered a Jewish family in Greece during World War II.

While the prince left Kate behind with children George, 4, Charlotte, 3, and Louis, she was present in one unusual way in Jordan, where the Middleton family lived for three years when Kate was growing up.

In Jerash, an archaeological site, he visited the spot where a four-year-old Kate posed for a photo with her father Michael Middleton, then a British Airways staffer, and sister Pippa.

Joined by Crown Prince Hussein, William was shown a giant image of the photo and laughed looking at his future father-in-law’s footwear: “Michael’s looking very smart in his flip-flops. Need to come back with the family for this shot.”

The Duke of Cambridge visits Jerash, the same site that The Duchess of Cambridge visited, aged 4, with her sister and father when the family lived in Jordan. pic.twitter.com/PMoFrr4Snt

— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) June 25, 2018

The visit comes just after Israel marked its 70th anniversary of independence and amid surges of violence along the Gaza border, including rocket attacks by Palestinian militants and Israeli air raids.

Britain captured Palestine from the Ottoman empire in 1917 during World War I. It administered the territory under international mandate until 1948, pulling out a day before Israel declared independence.

The trip is at the behest of the British government. Until now it had been British policy not to make an official royal visit until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved

– with Reuters