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The Biden administration believes it is still possible to broker a historic normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, but the window for an agreement is closing with fighting still under way in Gaza and the U.S. presidential campaign ramping up.

Saudi Arabia won’t agree to move forward until a cease-fire is in place, but talks to halt the conflict have stalled, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is traveling in the Middle East this week, is pushing a normalization deal in talks with Saudi and Israeli officials, as part of a broader effort to end the Gaza war, isolate Iran, and stabilize the region.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Blinken that a cease-fire would have to be reached as soon as possible before progress is possible on normalization, Saudi officials said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected Hamas’s terms for a cease-fire in Gaza, after the Palestinian militant group called for the release of thousands of prisoners along with other concessions.

A White House push for a normalization deal was gathering momentum before the Gaza war. For Saudi Arabia, the daily images of dead and dying Palestinian women and children have galvanized Arab opposition to Israel’s war, making Riyadh wary about diplomatic recognition unless Israel halts the war and agrees to a renewed path to creation of a Palestinian state, analysts said.

An Israel-Saudi deal is part of a broader postwar blueprint the administration is pushing that includes reconstruction of the shattered Gaza Strip with financial support from Arab governments and installing a revamped Palestinian Authority to govern the enclave after Israel withdraws, a plan that remains fraught with obstacles.

For Israel, the goal of defeating Hamas, whose deadly Oct. 7 attack launched the Gaza conflict, has become Netanyahu’s priority and made him reluctant to make the deeper concessions Riyadh is demanding in return for recognition.

For the Biden administration, the U.S. presidential race has added a new urgency to the normalization effort, with the White House eager for a foreign policy achievement to outdo that of his likely opponent, former President Donald Trump, whose administration forged similar diplomatic deals between Israel and other Arab countries.

“You can see the path forward for Israel and for the entire region,” Blinken said in a press conference in Tel Aviv Wednesday when asked about diplomatic recognition of Israel by Saudi Arabia. But, he added, “Going down that path, pursuing it, requires hard decisions.”

Before Oct. 7, U.S. officials believed that they could secure a normalization deal by offering the Saudi crown prince inducements he cared more about than a Palestinian state, including closer defense ties with the U.S. and assistance with Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear program.

U.S. officials were hammering out the finer details of what they hoped would be the most momentous Middle East peace deal in a generation.

The Gaza War has changed that calculation for Riyadh, officials said.

After Blinken held talks with the crown prince in Riyadh on Tuesday, the kingdom said it had “communicated its firm position to the U.S. administration that there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized” within the West Bank and Gaza “with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry said.

Israel must also halt its military operation in Gaza and withdraw its troops from the enclave, the statement added.

Mohammed told Blinken in their meeting that the window to reach a normalization agreement with Israel this year was closing unless a cease-fire agreement could be reached within weeks, according to Arab officials briefed on their talks.

“He repeated to me his desire and determination to pursue normalization.” Blinken said. “But he also repeated that in order to do that, two things need to happen: One, there needs to be calm in Gaza; two, there needs to be a clear and credible pathway to a Palestinian state.”

In talks last year before the Gaza war, U.S. and Saudi officials said that Israel would have to make a significant offer that advances efforts to create an independent Palestinian state. But Israeli leaders play down the importance of the Palestinian issue in the early stages of the talks.

Saudi officials have shown dwindling patience for uncompromising and divided Palestinian leaders with limited popular support. But as home to two of the most important holy sites in Islam, Saudi Arabia is looking to secure a meaningful concession from Israel to fend off criticism from rivals in Iran and Turkey looking to accuse the kingdom of quashing Palestinian dreams of an independent state.

U.S. officials said they don’t know if Saudi Arabia would back down from its demands on the Palestinian issue if standing firm put their nuclear and military gains in jeopardy. But those discussions can only happen, U.S. officials said, once there is a pause in fighting in Gaza.

“A lot of stuff is possible with a pause,” said one senior Biden administration official. “We see the hostage deal as the swiftest and quickest path to ending the war.”

Only weeks before the Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that sparked the Gaza war, Netanyahu said that normalization with Saudi Arabia was “likely” and that it would be a “quantum leap” in the region.

After his talks with Blinken Wednesday, Netanyahu vowed to continue the Israeli offensive against Hamas, even after a temporary pause in the fighting, arguing that the defeat of Hamas—not normalization with Saudi Arabia—will transform the Middle East and open up possibilities for closer regional ties.

“Ultimately, the elimination of Hamas will radiate across the entire Middle East and allow us to expand the circle of peace with our neighbors,” Netanyahu said at a news conference. “Today I told U.S. Secretary of State Blinken: ‘We are within reach of total victory, which will also be victory for the entire free world. Not only Israel’s.’”

It would “change the Middle East forever,” he said—bringing down “walls of enmity” and creating “a corridor of energy pipelines, rail lines, fiber optic cables, between Asia through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and the United Arab Emirates,” he said in an interview last September with CNN.

He refused to say what concession he would make to the Palestinians in order to achieve an agreement with Riyadh.

Many Israelis are even more wary of empowering a Palestinian state since the Hamas attack on Israel. Netanyahu has been staunchly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state for decades. In recent weeks he has said Israel must maintain full security control of Gaza and the West Bank for the foreseeable future, a fact he called “contrary to a Palestinian state.”