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A breakthrough diplomatic deal between Washington and Riyadh is “pretty much there” but a broader pact involving Israel hinges on “a credible path” towards the creation of a Palestinian state, a senior US official has said.
The US had made significant progress in talks with the kingdom over American help on defence and a civilian nuclear programme, the US official said, and the countries had a “near final set” of bilateral agreements in place.
The discussions are part of US efforts to secure a grand bargain that would include Saudi Arabia and Israel normalising their diplomatic relations — but depends on Israel’s willingness to grant concessions to the Palestinians.
The seven-month war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza must also wind down before a final three-way deal was agreed, US officials and analysts said.
“We now have a near final set of arrangements, which would be the bilateral elements of this deal, and we really believe the Saudi deal is pretty much there,” the senior official said.
“But there are elements of it, including a credible pathway for the Palestinians and also some other elements, that would still have to be completed.”
The official added: “The crisis needs to recede to open up space for this.”
The US comments come just days after national security adviser Jake Sullivan held talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.
A grand bargain between the three countries had initially appeared doomed after October 7, when Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel sparked Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza, which has killed more than 35,000 people, according to Palestinian officials, and left hopes for progress on Palestinian statehood — a component of the trilateral deal — in peril.
Netanyahu, who heads the most far-right government in Israel’s history, has repeatedly ruled out any concessions to the Palestinians or towards establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
On Tuesday, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, as well as some leaders of Hamas, for alleged war crimes.
US officials have made clear that any deal also hinges on securing a pause in fighting in Gaza. A focus of Sullivan’s meetings in Israel was getting dormant talks over a ceasefire in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas “back on track”, the official said.
Whether Israel expands its offensive on Rafah, the southern Gazan city where more than 1mn people had sought sanctuary, would play a role in the ceasefire talks.
More than 800,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah after Israel launched an offensive on the city this month, despite US opposition to an assault on such a densely populated area. Israel also took over the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, choking off a critical entry point for humanitarian aid into the besieged strip.
“Rafah may play into this, it does change the equation quite a bit and there may be some opportunities for getting the hostage deal back on track,” the senior official said.
US President Joe Biden has paused shipments of 2,000lb bombs and has threatened to withhold them fully if Israel goes ahead on a full-scale invasion of Rafah. After the meetings in Israel, the Biden administration felt that Israel had taken into account many of its concerns, the official said.
“We’re not here to greenlight Israeli military operations,” the senior official said. “It’s fair to say I think the Israelis have updated their plans, they’ve incorporated many of the concerns that we have expressed.”
The US and Israel also had a detailed discussion about how to transition to a stabilisation phase in the fighting and offered its resources to help track down Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the October 7 attacks.
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