When U.S. President Donald Trump lands in Riyadh on Tuesday, he will be greeted with opulent ceremonies, gilded palaces and the prospect of $1 trillion in investments. But, the raging war in Gaza has denied him one goal he has long craved: Saudi-Israel normalization.

Behind the scenes, U.S. officials are quietly pressing Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire in Gaza - one of Saudi Arabia's preconditions for any restart of normalization talks, said two Persian Gulf sources close to official circles and a U.S. official, Reuters reported.

Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff told an audience at the Israeli embassy in Washington this week that he imminently expected progress on expanding the Abraham Accords, a set of deals brokered by Trump in his first term under which certain Arab states, including the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, recognized Israel.

“We think we will have some or a lot of announcements very, very shortly, which we hope will yield progress by next year,” Witkoff said in a video of his speech. He is expected to accompany Trump on his visit to the Middle East.

However, opposition by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a permanent stop to the war or to the creation of a Palestinian state make progress on similar talks with Riyadh unlikely, two of the sources said.