According to the source, Riyadh anticipates a return to the type of indirect communication with Israel that was facilitated by the US prior to the October 7 massacre.
US President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Salman shake hands during a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing ceremony at the Royal Court in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025.(photo credit: REUTERS/BRIAN SNYDER)ByJERUSALEM POST STAFF Updated: While normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel is not yet imminent, efforts to lay the groundwork are underway, a source within the Saudi royal family told Kan News on Saturday.
The comment came as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is expected to visit Washington in 10 days for a meeting with US President Donald Trump.
According to the source, Riyadh anticipates a return to the type of indirect communication with Israel that was facilitated by the US prior to the October 7 massacre.
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud attend the Saudi-US Investment Forum in Riyadh in May. The deeper the Saudi-American partnership becomes, the less incentive Riyadh will have to normalize ties with Israel, the writer asserts. (credit: BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS)
Thawing the ice between Israel and Saudi Arabia
Kan reported that the talks would aim to “thaw the ice” between the two countries and help bridge positions that had grown more distant during the war.
Saudi sources stressed that normalization with Israel will not move forward without a two-state agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Saudi officials viewed Kazakhstan’s recent decision to join the Abraham Accords as a positive development, Kan also reported.
Kazakhstan officially joined the Abraham Accords on Thursday following a trilateral phone call between US President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Trump confirmed.
Kazakhstan’s signature of the accords will be the “first of many” of Trump’s second term, Trump said.
“This is a major step forward in building bridges across the World. Today, more Nations are lining up to embrace Peace and Prosperity through my Abraham Accords.”
The US formally circulated the draft resolution to the 15 council members late on Wednesday and has said it has regional support from Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE.
View of destroyed buildings following an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, October 25, 2025(photo credit: Ali Hassan/Flash90)ByREUTERSUpdated: The United Nations Security Council started negotiations on a US-drafted resolution to endorse President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, and authorize a two-year mandate for a transitional governance body and international stabilization force on Thursday, a senior US government official said.
The US formally circulated the draft resolution to the 15 council members late on Wednesday and has said it has regional support from Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates for the text.
“The message is: if the region is with one on this and the region is with one on how this resolution is constructed, then we believe that the council should be as well,” the senior US government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.“Russia and China will certainly have their inputs, and we’ll take those as they come. But at the end of the day, I do not see those countries standing in the way and blocking what is probably the most promising plan for peace in a generation,” the official said.
Members of the United Nations Security Council vote on a resolution by Russia and China to delay by six months the reimposition of sanctions on Iran during the 80th UN General Assembly in New York City, US, September 26, 2025. (credit: REUTERS/EDUARDO MUNOZ)
Trump told reporters later on Thursday that the international force would deploy “very soon.” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio then noted that the countries volunteering to contribute troops “need this UN mandate in order to be able to do it.”
Hamas
The draft resolution, seen by Reuters, would authorize a Board of Peace transitional governance administration to establish a temporary International Stabilization Force in Gaza that could “use all necessary measures,” language for force, to carry out its mandate.
The ISF would be authorized to protect civilians and humanitarian aid operations, work to secure border areas with Israel, Egypt and a “newly trained and vetted Palestinian police force.”
The ISF would stabilize security in Gaza by “ensuring the process of demilitarizing the Gaza Strip, including the destruction and prevention of rebuilding of the military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, as well as the permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups.”
The official said the drafted UN resolution gives the ISF authority to disarm Hamas, but that the US was still expecting Hamas to “live up to its end of the agreement” and give up its weapons.
Hamas has not said whether it will agree to disarm and demilitarize Gaza, something it has rejected before.
International forced likely around 20,000 troops
The senior US official said the ISF was shaping up to be around 20,000 troops.
While the Trump administration has ruled out sending US soldiers into the Gaza Strip, it has been speaking to Indonesia, the UAE, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and Azerbaijan to contribute.
“We’ve been in steady contact with the potential troop contributors, and what they need in terms of a mandate, what type of language they need,” said the official. “Almost all of the countries are looking to have some type of international mandate. The preferred is UN.”
The official said he was aware if Israel had ruled out any specific countries from contributing troops to the ISF, but added: “We’re in constant conversations with them.” Israel said last month it would not accept Turkish armed forces in Gaza under the US peace plan.
Israel and Hamas agreed a month ago to the first phase of Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza, a ceasefire in their two-year war and a hostage release deal. That 20-point plan is annexed to the draft UN Security Council resolution.
“Time is not on our side here. The ceasefire is holding, but it is fragile, and … we cannot get bogged down in wordsmithing in the council. I think this is a real test for the United Nations,” the senior US official said.
Mexican authorities thwarted an attempted attack on Ambassador Einat Kranz-Neiger.
Israel’s Ambassador to Mexico, Einat Kranz Neiger.(photo credit: MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS)ByJERUSALEM POST STAFF, IDAN KWELLER, REUTERSUpdated: Mexico thwarted an Iran-directed terror attack aimed at harming the Israeli ambassador to the country, the Foreign Ministry shared on Friday.The announcement by the ministry came hours after N12 published that American and Israeli officials confirmed the IRGC planned an attack against Ambassador Einat Kranz-Neiger as part of a wider attack on Israeli and American interests in the region.“We are in the line of fire at this time, diplomats are literally standing at the forefront as they represent the State of Israel in a climate that is not always simple. We are well aware of the history of Iran and its attacks in Latin America, and this is a good opportunity to thank the authorities and security services here in Mexico for their assistance in thwarting it,” said Kranz-Neiger to Walla.“Since the news was published, I have been interviewing the media in Mexico and conveying the messages to reflect the complexity of this time, and especially the Iranian threat in the form of attacks of this type that, as mentioned, we have seen in the world in the past,” she added.Planned throughout 2024, the IRGC planned to kill the ambassador in early 2025 in a now-thwarted plot. American officials assured N12 that there is no longer an active threat.A man holds a candle as he attends a demonstration in support of Palestinians and the Global Sumud Flotilla, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza, outside the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, September 20, 2025. (credit: JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ/REUTERS)
Israel’s Foreign Ministry, in a statement, thanked the security and law enforcement services in Mexico for “thwarting a terrorist network directed by Iran that sought to attack Israel’s ambassador in Mexico.”
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The Iranian Embassy in Mexico said the accusation was “entirely false,” the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.“We will never tarnish the good reputation of Mexicans, our friends. We consider betrayal of Mexico’s interests as betrayal of our own interests, and respecting Mexico’s laws is our highest priority,” Mehr cited the embassy as saying.
Iran’s attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets
American sources told N12 that large components of the attacks were planned from the Iranian embassy in Venezuela and were led by Hassan Izadi.
After spending years recruiting from the Venezuelan embassy, Izada was relocated to a new position in Tehran, where he was said to have continued his plots against the Israeli ambassador. The same IRGC unit, the Quds Force’s Unit 11000, was also behind a number of recently thwarted attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets in Australia and Europe, according to Axios.“This is just the latest example in a long history of assassination attempts by Iran around the world against diplomats, journalists, dissidents, and anyone who disagrees with it – something that should raise deep concern in any country where there is an Iranian presence,” the American official said.Foreign Ministry Spokesman Oren Marmorstein confirmed that, “The Israeli intelligence and security community will continue to work tirelessly, in full cooperation with security and intelligence agencies around the world, to thwart terror threats from Iran and its proxies against Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide.”Security services in Britain and Sweden warned last year that Tehran was using criminal proxies to carry out violent attacks in those countries, with London saying it had disrupted 20 Iran-linked plots since 2022.A dozen other countries have condemned what they called a surge in assassination, kidnapping, and harassment plots by Iranian intelligence services.Britain’s domestic spy chief, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum, said last month that Iran was “frantically” trying to silence its critics around the world, and cited how Australia had exposed Iranian involvement in antisemitic plots and Dutch authorities had revealed a failed assassination attempt.
