A delegation of senior American officials is set to travel to Riyadh this week to meet with their Saudi counterparts to discuss a potential normalization agreement between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Israel, according to an American official and a Palestinian official speaking to the Times of Israel on Sunday.

The visit by White House official Brett McGurk and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf comes just over a month after U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan visited Saudi Arabia for the same purpose, indicating Washington's continued determination to mediate a peaceful settlement and an elusive deal. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also visited Riyadh on the same mission in June.

Officials said, "McGurk and Leaf's visit coincides with a visit by a Palestinian delegation headed by the Secretary-General of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hussein al-Sheikh, who will be in Riyadh to discuss what Ramallah hopes to achieve from the Saudi-Israeli normalization agreement."

A White House spokesperson declined to comment, while a State Department spokesperson said they had nothing to announce. A spokesperson for the Saudi embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is prepared to abandon its long-held public position against normalization with Israel in the absence of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it is still unlikely that Riyadh will agree to a deal with Israel that does not include a resolution to the conflict and significant progress toward Palestinian sovereignty, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Last week, three officials told the Times of Israel that the Palestinian Authority is seeking "irreversible" steps that would bolster its efforts to establish a state in the context of negotiations for the normalization agreement between Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The proposed steps included U.S. support for recognizing the Palestinian state at the United Nations, reopening its consulate in Jerusalem that historically served Palestinians, rescinding Congressional legislation that describes the Palestinian Authority as a terrorist organization, transferring areas of the West Bank from Israel to Palestinian control, and demolishing illegal settlements in the West Bank.

These steps would represent significant victories for the Palestinian Authority, which has had few diplomatic achievements in recent years.