US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will step up efforts to secure a truce in Gaza during meetings in the Middle East on Monday, in what could be a final chance to persuade Israel to call off an attack on Rafah.

The White House said Sunday that Israel has agreed to hear out its concerns. Israel has “assured us that they won’t go into Rafah until we’ve had a chance to really share our perspectives and our concerns with them,” John Kirby, spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, told ABC News. “So we’ll see where that goes.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged US President Joe Biden to intervene, telling a special edition of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh that the US “is the only country capable” of stopping an Israel invasion of Rafah.

Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reviewed the talks on a hostage release and a Gaza cease-fire during a call on Sunday, according to a White House statement. Biden also “reiterated his clear position” on Rafah.

“If there’s a deal, we will suspend the operation” in Rafah, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Channel 12 on Saturday, even as the Israeli military continued to make preparations for an offensive.

A Hamas official said its delegation plans to respond to the latest Israeli truce plan on Monday, Agence France-Presse reported, offering another glimmer of hope as the Gaza conflict grinds toward the seven-month mark.

Egypt is stepping up efforts at mediation to secure an agreement between Israel and Hamas leading to a cease-fire in exchange for the release of hostages, but the two sides remain far apart.

Blinken is traveling to Saudi Arabia to meet with regional counterparts and then on to Israel, according to U.S. and Israeli media. It’s the top U.S. diplomat’s seventh Middle Eastern trip since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

An Israeli assault on Rafah, a safe haven for roughly half the Gaza Strip’s population who’ve fled almost seven months of fighting, would prolong the conflict and threaten Biden’s hopes of getting Arab states to help with postwar rebuilding. It would also stymie a U.S. push to secure a historic accord to establish relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. has urged Israel against a large-scale offensive in Rafah, which Israeli officials say is needed to crush the final stronghold of 5,000 to 8,000 fighters and key leaders from the Palestinian militant group. The small city on the coastal strip’s border with Egypt had a prewar population of about 280,000 and is now crammed with more than a million refugees. There are fears of major civilian casualties if Israeli troops storm it. Israel has promised to move the civilians out, an uncertain process that could take weeks.

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