Harris says she told PM ‘time to get deal done,’ vows to speak up on Gazan suffering

WASHINGTON — US Vice President Kamala Harris says “there has been hopeful movement” hostage talks and that she told Prime Minister Netanyahu in their meeting earlier today at the White House that “it is time to get this deal done.”

Harris makes the comments in her first major public remarks regarding the Israel-Hamas war since she became the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

The vice president makes a point of reading out the names of all eight American-Israel hostages still held captive by Hamas — something no US official has done in this manner.

Harris says she has met several times with their families, telling them, “They are not alone, and I stand with them.”

“Let’s get the deal done, so we can get a ceasefire to end the war. Let’s bring the hostages home, and let’s provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people,” she says.

The vice president says she had a “frank and constructive” conversation with Netanyahu during which she pledged to him that she will “always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself,” including from Iran and its proxies.

Highlighting her long history with the state of Israel, Harris recalls how she raised money as a child to plant trees in the Jewish state. It has been a go-to anecdote for her in engagements with pro-Israel audiences and it seems she’ll be using the recollection the way US President Joe Biden has with his story about meeting former prime minister Golda Meir as a young senator.

“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’ve had an unwavering commitment to the existence of the State of Israel, to its security, and to the people of Israel,” Harris says in an apparent effort to boast her pro-Israel bonafides amid a drumbeat of reports that she has served as the bad-cop foil to Biden — a narrative US officials have dismissed to The Times of Israel.

“Israel has a right to defend itself and how it does so matters,” she says.

Harris brands Hamas a “brutal terror organization” that triggered the ongoing war with its October 7 onslaught, noting that it included “horrific acts of sexual violence.”

At the same time, she expresses her “serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians.”

“I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there with over two million people are facing high levels of food insecurity,” she adds.

“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.”

Harris says she remains committed to “a path forward that can lead to a two-state solution,” acknowledging that it cannot be reached immediately but that it is still the best framework for both sides.

Addressing the American public, she urges it to remember that the Israel-Hamas war “is not a binary issue.”

“I asked my fellow Americans to help encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance and the history of the region,” she says.

“Let us all condemn terrorism and violence. Let us all do what we can to prevent the suffering of innocent civilians, and let us condemn antisemitism, Islamophobia and hate of any kind,” Harris adds.