Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz amid growing pressure on the United States’ position in the Gaza war.
US Vice President Kamala Harris reiterated her country’s support for Israel and pushed for more humanitarian aid to flow into the Gaza Strip during negotiations with war cabinet member Benny Gantz Israeli.
In a report from Monday’s meeting in Washington, D.C., the White House said Harris “expressed deep concern about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza,” a narrow Palestinian enclave that is the subject of a military offensive. Israeli murderer since October 7.
The statement explained that Harris stressed the importance of reaching an agreement that would see the release of prisoners captured by the Palestinian group Hamas in exchange for an immediate six-week truce.
“She urged Israel to take additional steps in cooperation with the United States and international partners to increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza and ensure its safe distribution to those in need,” the statement also said .
Gantz’s visit to Washington, DC comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration faces widespread pressure to curb “unwavering” US support for Israel in light of the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza .
More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli bombardments, which began on October 7 following a Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed around 1,100 people.
Critics have pointed out that Israel’s war on Gaza has pushed the territory – home to nearly 2.3 million people – to the brink of collapse. The vast majority of the population has been displaced by the bombing, and the Israeli siege has left basic necessities like food, water and medicine in short supply.
Experts have warned of famine, with Palestinian children already dying of malnutrition.
In recent weeks, the Biden administration has changed its tone, calling for more aid to Gaza. It recently airdropped a limited number of meals to the Palestinians. But critics say these efforts will have little effect unless Washington puts pressure on Israel to end the war.
Some have called on the United States to suspend military and diplomatic assistance to the Israeli government. The U.S. government provides at least $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel each year.
In Washington on Monday afternoon, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Shihab Rattansi said there had been several “performative gestures” from the White House in recent days amid mounting public pressure.
On Sunday, for example, Harris spoke in Selma, Alabama – an important site of the US civil rights movement – where she reaffirmed US support for a six-week pause in fighting and spoke in harsh terms of the “inhumane” conditions in Gaza. .
But ultimately, Washington’s policy remains “fundamentally the same,” Rattansi said.
Gantz, a former top general in the Israeli army, is widely seen as a more centrist politician than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But critics say that as a member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, he also represents the Israeli government and its Gaza policy.
Biden, who is seeking re-election in November, has already faced backlash at the polls over his stance toward Israel’s war in Gaza. Last week, more than 101,000 Democratic voters in Michigan’s state primary voted “no-commitment” instead of supporting Biden, largely because of a protest campaign following the war in Gaza.
Speaking to Tel Aviv Tribune on Monday, Tamer Qarmout, assistant professor of public policy at the Doha Institute of Advanced Studies, said what matters is whether the Biden administration will take “real steps to prevent Israel” to continue his war.
“We don’t anticipate this happening,” Qarmout said. “The United States is not really using its influence to change Israel’s behavior. »