US Vice President Kamala Harris will meet Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz at the White House on Monday, a day after he called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza.
A White House official said the talks were expected to focus on Palestinian civilian casualties, securing a temporary ceasefire, releasing hostages and increasing aid to the enclave.
“The vice president will express her concerns for the safety of up to 1.5 million people in Rafah,” the official said, adding that Israel “has the right to defend itself against the ongoing terrorist threat from Hamas.”
Gantz confirmed in a statement that he would meet with Harris, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Republican and Democratic members of Congress.
Harris used a speech on Sunday to issue a call for a ceasefire, one of the strongest calls yet by the Biden administration to stop the war.
“Given the immense suffering in Gaza, an immediate ceasefire is necessary,” Harris said at an event in Selma, Alabama, marking a major civil rights anniversary.
Harris also told the crowd that “the threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel must be eliminated.”
The U.S. government has been working with Egypt and Qatar to mediate a six-week pause in fighting to free the remaining hostages held by Hamas and expand aid to Gaza, where the United Nations has warned of looming famine.
Speaking at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Harris said the people of Gaza are starving. 59 years ago, state police beat American civil rights marchers here, known as “Bloody Sunday.”
“Conditions are inhumane and our shared humanity compels us to act,” she said. “The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase aid flows. There are no excuses.”
On Saturday, a joint U.S. and Jordanian air force airdropped 38,000 meals along Gaza’s coastline. A senior U.S. official said the airdrop would be part of an “ongoing effort” with international partners to expand humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Humanitarians use airdrops as a last resort because they are expensive, complex to operate and cannot deliver the volume of aid that trucks can.
“powder keg”
The “top priority” is to do everything possible to avoid a wider war, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said on Monday, citing cross-border fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon.
“I am deeply concerned that any spark in this powder keg could lead to a wider conflagration,” the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva said. “This will have consequences for every country in the Middle East and beyond.”
Turk said the conflict in Gaza “has had dangerous spillover effects in neighboring countries.”
He also highlighted attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Red Sea ships, which the Houthis said were in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Turk said Houthi attacks disrupted maritime trade and raised commodity prices, which had a significant impact on developing countries.
“There is a serious risk that the conflict will spread to Yemen itself, which could cause severe harm to the Yemeni people who are already suffering from a humanitarian crisis caused by a decade of war,” Turk told the Security Council.
ceasefire negotiations
A Hamas delegation was in Cairo on Sunday to discuss a possible one-week ceasefire in the nearly five-month war with Israel. But Israeli media reported that Israeli mediators boycotted the talks after Hamas refused to provide a full list of hostages still alive.
The Biden administration has said it hopes to reach a ceasefire before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins around March 10.
The deal would bring fighting to an extended pause for the first time since a week-long truce in late November. Under the proposed terms, dozens of the remaining 100 hostages held by Hamas would be released in exchange for Israel releasing hundreds of Palestinians.
A U.S. official told reporters, “The path to a ceasefire at this point is actually very simple. And there is an agreement on the table. There is a framework agreement.”
Israel has vowed to end the threat of another Hamas attack, such as the October 7 terror attack on the Jewish state that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli statistics. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, Israel’s counteroffensive since then has killed more than 30,500 people in Gaza, about 70% of whom were women and children.
If a ceasefire agreement is reached, it will be possible to expand humanitarian assistance to the situation in Gaza, where the situation is increasingly dire. The health ministry said at least 16 children had died from malnutrition in recent days as “famine” spread across the north.
Information for this report was provided in part by The Associated Press, AFP and Reuters.
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