White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan highlighted, during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, the “possibility” now being “offered” to conclude an agreement to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, he announced. the US presidency.

Mr. Sullivan also called on Mr. Netanyahu to accompany Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip with a “political strategy” for the future of the Palestinian enclave to “eliminate” the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, according to a White House press release. .

Mr Sullivan met Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in the eastern Saudi city of Dhahran on Saturday before traveling to Israel for talks with Mr Netanyahu and other top officials.

“Mr. Sullivan briefed Prime Minister Netanyahu and his team on the talks and the opportunity now available to Israel, as well as the Palestinian people,” the US presidency said in a statement.

According to Saudi Arabia’s official SPA news agency, Mohammed bin Salman and Jake Sullivan discussed the “almost final” version of a draft agreement to strengthen bilateral relations in the field of security.

The two parties also discussed their “work” “regarding the Palestinian cause”, the need “to find a credible way” to advance “the two-state solution”, which “responds to the desires and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people”, and efforts to end the war and facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the small densely populated enclave, according to Riyadh.

The US administration is seeking an agreement under which the Gulf monarchy would recognize Israel, in exchange for security guarantees, a military cooperation agreement and US aid to the Saudi nuclear energy program.

In Israel, Mr. Sullivan “reaffirmed President (U.S. Joe Biden’s) long-standing position on Rafah,” a town on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip that is under threat of a full-scale Israeli ground offensive, in his announcement White House.

The Biden administration has repeatedly called on Israel not to go ahead with the attack and recently suspended a shipment of bombs to the Israeli military over concerns they would be used in Rafah.

After a hasty evacuation of civilians was ordered on May 6, on the eve of a tank invasion of the eastern part of the city, “almost half of Gaza’s population,” numbering some 2.4 million inhabitants—or 800,000 people—”were forced to flee for once again,” underlined yesterday the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini.

Mr. Sullivan also reaffirmed “the need for Israel to accompany its military operations with a political strategy that can ensure the permanent defeat of Hamas, the release of all hostages and a better future for Gaza.”