The deal could be announced during US President Donald Trump’s planned trip to the Middle East next month.

The United States is poised to offer Saudi Arabia an arms package worth more than $100bn, the Reuters news agency reports, citing six sources familiar with the matter.

The deal is reportedly in the works in advance of a planned trip by US President Donald Trump to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates next month, Reuters reported on Thursday.

Top defence contractors such as Lockheed Martin, RTX Corp, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Atomics are reported to be involved in the supply of advanced weapons systems, according to Reuters, and several executives from the companies are expected to join Trump’s delegation for the visit.

The sources cited by Reuters say the contractor could see Riyadh supplied with a range of weapons including C-130 transport aircraft, missiles and radar systems.

It is unlikely, however, that Saudi Arabia will gain access to Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet. Only a select number of countries can buy F-35s from the US, such as NATO allies, Japan, South Korea and Australia.

Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, tried unsuccessfully to sign a new defence pact with Saudi Arabia with the broader aim of normalising relations with Israel. Biden’s pact also called for Riyadh to restrict Chinese investment and halt arms purchases from Beijing, but Reuters said it could not establish whether Trump’s proposed deal would call for similar restrictions.

Neither the White House nor Saudi officials immediately responded to the request for comment, but a US defence official told Reuters that “security cooperation remains an important component” of the US-Saudi relationship. None of the defence contractors named by Reuters replied to queries.

While the US has long supplied Saudi Arabia with weapons, sales dropped off in 2018 following the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. In 2021, the US Congress banned the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia in the wake of the murder and Riyadh’s involvement in the war in Yemen.

The Biden administration began to soften its stance on Saudi Arabia in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine impacted global oil supplies, and the ban on offensive weapons sales was lifted in 2024 as Saudi Arabia was seen as a key partner by the US in the post-war reconstruction of Gaza.

Yale University has become the latest top institution in the United States to ban a pro-Palestine group, this time for protests against a visit by far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Ben-Gvir’s stop near the university in New Haven, Connecticut, on Wednesday sparked outrage as protesters criticised the minister’s support for surging attacks on Gaza, and most recently, his calls to bomb “food and aid depots” in the Palestinian territory.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Raed Jarrar, the advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), described the university’s silence about Ben-Gvir, who has “openly called for genocide”, and its subsequent crackdown on protesters “not just a moral contradiction – it’s a moral and legal failure”.

The demonstrations began on Tuesday night when protesters gathered on campus and began setting up tents at a short-lived encampment. While lasting just a few hours, the scene was similar to encampment protests that swept across US universities last year, often prompting crackdowns and policy changes from administrators.

The next day, Yale said in a statement that the encampment had violated its policies related to the use of outdoor spaces and students who had been warned or punished in previous incidents would face “immediate disciplinary action”.

It added that the university was investigating “concerns … about disturbing anti-Semitic conduct at the gathering” without providing any details.

The administration also said the student organisation Yalies4Palestine would lose its official status for sending “out calls over social media for others to join the event” and for later taking credit for the event.

In a statement to the student newspaper, the Yale Daily News, a group of pro-Palestine protesters denied the event was affiliated with or planned by any group.

The protests then continued on Wednesday night when Ben-Gvir arrived for a speech at the Shabtai, a private Jewish society that describes itself as “based at Yale University” although it is not formally affiliated with or located at a property owned by the university.

Ben-Gvir briefly taunted the protesters with what his office told CNN was a “victory sign” gesture as he was met with chants of “shame on you”, according to video of the event.

His office later said a water bottle had been thrown at him from the crowd, which included students and nonstudents, and he was unharmed.

‘Attacking students … won’t save Yale’

Yale’s latest punishment for pro-Palestine protesters comes during a wider pressure campaign on top universities by the administration of President Donald Trump.

While former President Joe Biden was seen as endorsing crackdowns on pro-Palestine protests, which he broadly described in April last year as “anti-Semitic”, the Trump administration has escalated the response.

Using claims of “anti-Semitism”, the Trump administration has sought to deport noncitizen pro-Palestine university protesters and has frozen or threatened to freeze federal funding for several top institutions, including Columbia University in New York and Harvard University in Massachusetts, if they do not agree to a series of policy changes.

Throughout the protest movement, organisers have repeatedly challenged the notion that such demonstrations are anti-Semitic, noting the regular involvement of Jewish students and disavowing rare instances of anti-Jewish statements made at often publicly open demonstrations.

In their statement carried by the student newspaper, pro-Palestine protesters at Yale accused administrators of coming down particularly harshly to avoid recourse from the Trump administration.

“Attacking students and alienating community members didn’t save Harvard or Columbia. It won’t save Yale,” they said.

Yale did not reply to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on whether concerns about a Trump administration response informed its disciplinary actions or if it had any response to Ben-Gvir’s visit.

For her part, Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, responded to a video on X showing protesters refusing to break a human chain to allow a student to pass through their ranks on campus.

The post claimed: “Jewish students aren’t allowed to walk through Yale’s campus anymore!”

Dhillon wrote that her office is “tracking the concerning activities at Yale, and is in touch with affected students”.

While critics said heavy-handed responses to pro-Palestine protesters have become commonplace in the US, some observers said the dissonance on display at Yale has been particularly striking.

Ben-Gvir was convicted in 2008 by an Israeli court of inciting racism and supporting a “terrorist” organisation, the founded Kach group, which supported the annexation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territories.

He has called for a no-holds-barred military operation in Gaza, where UN experts already say Israel is committing “genocidal acts”.

He has appealed for Israel to commit what would constitute war crimes under international law in Gaza. Most recently, he posted on X that he told “senior Republican officials” at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida that Israel should bomb “food and aid depots”.

‘Deepest contradiction’

Eman Abdelhadi, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, said Yale’s silence regarding Ben-Gvir speaking at an organisation that claims to be based at the university “exposes the deepest contradictions in our society and in these institutions that are supposed to be dedicated towards truth seeking and critical thought”.

“[Ben-Gvir] faces no red line,” she said. “But the people protesting can face severe consequences.”

“This is a moment where universities are fighting for their lives and trying to argue to the American public that they are worth saving in the face of Trump’s onslaught,” she said. “And yet they show no moral courage.”

The expectation is that whoever holds the role would be the frontrunner to succeed President Mahmoud Abbas, 89.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has announced the creation of a vice presidency under 89-year-old leader Mahmoud Abbas, who has not specified a successor.

After a two-day meeting, the body’s central council voted on Thursday to create the role of vice chairman of the PLO Executive Committee. This position would also be referred to as the vice president of the State of Palestine, which the Palestinians hope will one day receive full international recognition.

The expectation is that whoever holds that role would be the frontrunner to succeed Abbas, though it’s unclear when or exactly how it would be filled. Abbas is to choose his vice president from among the other 15 members of the PLO’s executive committee.

The PLO is the internationally recognised representative of the Palestinian people and oversees the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited autonomy in some areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Abbas has led both entities for 20 years.

Hamas, which won the last national elections in 2006, is not in the PLO. Hamas seized control of Gaza from PA security forces in 2007, and reconciliation attempts between the rivals have repeatedly failed.

Polls in recent years have shown plummeting support for him and his Fatah party.

Western and Arab donor countries have demanded reforms in the PA for it to play a role in post-war Gaza. The authority is deeply unpopular and faces longstanding allegations of corruption and poor governance. Appointing an heir apparent could be aimed at appeasing his critics.

Hamas slammed Abbas on Thursday for comments he made a day earlier, where he described the group as “sons of dogs” and urged it to release Israeli captives and lay down arms.

“Abbas repeatedly and suspiciously lays the blame for the crimes of the occupation and its ongoing aggression on our people,” Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza resumed on March 18, at least 1,928 people have been killed there, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted in October 2023 to at least 51,305, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Abbas has been seeking greater relevance and a role in post-war planning for the Gaza Strip after having been largely sidelined.

Talks on a new ceasefire appear to have made little progress, and a Hamas delegation is in Cairo for renewed negotiations with key Egyptian and Qatari mediators.