US position on Gaza finally hardening as split with Netanyahu grows

Vice-president Kamala Harris has a blunt message for Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, on aid and a ceasefire – but the fact it is not the Israeli prime minister visiting Washington himself shows how difficult it will be to secure action, Chris Stevenson and Andrew Feinberg write

The aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, southern Gaza (Getty)

Kamala Harris has a frank message for Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet – that conditions in Gaza are a humanitarian catastrophe, that more aid needs to make it into the besieged territory, and that there needs to be an immediate ceasefire.

The US vice-president told reporters as much as she left a political event in Washington on Monday, not long before she was scheduled to meet with Gantz, an opposition rival of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the White House.

Asked what she planned to talk about, she replied that they would discuss getting the hostage deal done, getting aid into the territory, and “getting that six-week ceasefire”.