Kamala Harris to Meet Top Israeli War Cabinet Official

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Vice President Kamala Harris was scheduled to meet with a top Israeli war cabinet official at the White House on Monday, a day after she amplified the United States’s calls for Hamas to sign off on a deal that would allow for a temporary cease-fire and more aid deliveries in the Gaza Strip.

During the meeting with Benny Gantz, Ms. Harris is expected to emphasize the urgency of securing a hostage deal and reducing the humanitarian crisis that has unfolded alongside Israel’s war against Hamas in response to its Oct. 7 attacks, according to a White House official who shared details of her plans on the condition of anonymity.

U.S. officials told reporters over the weekend that negotiations were continuing and that Israel had “more or less accepted” a framework for the deal, but also that Hamas had not yet accepted it.

On Sunday, as she delivered remarks in Selma, Ala., to commemorate a major event in the American civil rights movement, Ms. Harris bolstered Mr. Biden’s calls for a six-week cease-fire that would allow for the release of hostages that were taken during Hamas’s attacks and allow aid to flow to Gaza. She also issued a sharp rebuke of Israel for what she called a “humanitarian catastrophe” in the enclave, saying that Israel must do more to allow the flow of aid into the region by opening new border crossings and refraining from imposing unnecessary restrictions on aid deliveries.

“The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid,” she said. “No excuses.”

It was the vice president’s sharpest assessment yet of the ongoing conflict, in which more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, according to Gazan health authorities, and hundreds of thousands more risk starvation.

“What we are seeing every day in Gaza is devastating,” Ms. Harris said, speaking at a bridge in Selma where Black Americans were beaten by white law enforcement officers in 1965 for marching for their right to vote.

In her meeting with Mr. Gantz on Monday, Ms. Harris will reinforce the American stance that Israel has a right to defend itself but will also say that the number of civilian casualties must be mitigated, according to the White House official.

The official said she will also express her concern for the more than one million displaced Palestinians in Rafah, in southern Gaza, as Israel prepares to deploy ground forces there; discuss postwar plans for Gaza that include the Palestinian Authority; and reiterate U.S. goals to increase aid to the region through airdrops of food, which began on Saturday, and deliveries by sea.

Mr. Gantz, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces who visited Washington last year, is also scheduled to meet separately with Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, his office said in a statement, as well as with members of Congress and pro-Israeli lobbyists.