The United States said it was still working on a landmark normalisation deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, whose de facto ruler stood firm on the creation of a Palestinian state.

“Every day that goes by, it gets tougher to accomplish anything. That’s just a temporal fact,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

“We continue to believe, however, that long term, of course, normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel is in the interests of both countries” and the region, he said.

“We are obviously quite aware of the challenges that we face in getting to those (goals) now. The fighting in Gaza continues to wage on. We continue to work to get a ceasefire,” he said.