Harris tells Netanyahu she 'won't be silent' on Gaza

Democrat nominee Kamala Harris gave her unwavering’ support to Israel but said the suffering of Gazans must end

- ANDREW FEINBERG

Vice-president Kamala Harris said she “would not be silent” about the “devastating” humanitarian situation in Gaza following what she described as a “frank and constructive” conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu last night.

It was the duo’s first in-person meeting since Ms Harris became the de facto Democratic Party nominee in this year’s presidential election.

Ms Harris, who met with Mr Netanyahu in her ceremonial Washington, DC, office after returning from a campaign stop in Texas, told reporters that she told the Israeli leader she would “always” assure his nation that it would be able to defend itself.

“From when I was a young girl collecting funds to plant trees for Israel to my time in the United States Senate and now at the White House, I have had an unwavering commitment to the existence of the State of Israel, to its security and to the people of Israel,” she told a press conference.

Ms Harris added that Israel “has a right to defend itself”, but she stressed that “how it does so matters” as well, calling Hamas “a brutal terrorist organisation” and citing the killing of 1,200 people during the 7 October attacks, as well as “horrific acts of sexual violence” and the kidnapping of at least 250 hostages.

But she also told reporters that she’d expressed to Mr Netanyahu “serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation” in Gaza, which includes more than two million people facing “catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity.”

“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time, we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent,” Ms Harris said.