Washington's top diplomat will travel to Saudi Arabia today as the deadline approaches on a landmark - and, analysts say, long-shot - deal that would see the kingdom recognise Israel.
In September, before Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel sparked the war, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Fox News that"every day we get closer" to a deal that could also bolster the Washington-Riyadh security partnership. Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, told the World Economic Forum in January that normalisation would be impossible without an"irrevocable" pathway towards that state's creation.
Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites, has never recognised Israel and did not join the 2020 US-brokered Abraham Accords that saw its Gulf neighbours Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Morocco, establish formal ties with Israel. The Saudis indicated they would want more than their Gulf peers got, bargaining hard for benefits like US security guarantees and assistance with a civilian nuclear programme with uranium enrichment capacity. In the months that followed, Israeli and American officials issued bullish statements, while the Saudis said characteristically little.
Israel's retaliatory military campaign to destroy Hamas has killed more than 34,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.