Israel has the “right to defend itself” but it cannot turn its back on the “terrible” humanitarian situation in Gaza, to which it cannot become “insensitive. I will not remain silent.” Kamala Harris assured at the end of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuin what was her first foreign policy test since Joe Biden endorsed her for the White House.
“As I told Netanyahu, it’s time to get the deal done” for the ceasefire and bring the hostages home, the vice president said speaking from the White House. “To all those who are calling for a ceasefire and shouting for peace, I see you and I hear you. Let’s get the deal done,” she added after a “frank and constructive” meeting with Netanyahu at the Ceremonial Office that lasted more than half an hour. She also reiterated to the prime minister her “unwavering” commitment to Israel and its security: Israel has “the right to defend itself, but how it defends itself is important,” Harris noted, reporting that she had expressed to Netanyahu her “grave concerns about the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.” “With more than two million people facing high levels of food insecurity and more than half a million facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, what has happened in Gaza over the last nine months is devastating,” she added. “We cannot turn away from these tragedies. We cannot afford to become insensitive to suffering. I will not be silent,” he emphasized, urging Americans not to see the war in Gaza as a black-and-white fact because the situation is more complex. “Often the conversation is binary but the reality is much more than that. I ask Americans to encourage efforts to increase awareness of the complexity and history of the region,” he added, condemning anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Hence the invitation to do everything possible to “prevent the suffering of innocent civilians. Let us work to unite our country.”
Israel: ‘Harris’ words harm hostage negotiations’
Vice President Kamala Harris’s statements about the “grave humanitarian crisis” in Gaza and the need to “end the war” are damaging the hostage release talks and “must be rejected,” an Israeli official was quoted as saying by the media as saying that during the meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave Harris a “detailed and factual” account of the situation on the ground in Gaza that contradicted the vice president’s statements “about the food crisis, the suffering of civilians and the high number of innocent people killed.” “Is the harm to Palestinian civilians really the issue right now?” the official said. Then, again quoted by the media, he added: “What should Hamas think when it hears this?” and stressed that Harris’s statements will lead the terrorist group to toughen its demands. “I hope they don’t lead to a regression in the talks,” he noted, “because we have made a lot of progress.”