Netanyahu steams as rival to meet with VP Harris, who has urged a cease-fire: Live updates:-On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris was set to meet with an Israeli war cabinet member and longtime rival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This happened just one day after Harris called the war in Gaza a “catastrophe” and called for a quick end to the fighting.
Netanyahu steams as rival to meet with VP Harris, who has urged a cease-fire: Live updates
People in Israel see the meeting as a warning from the Biden administration to Netanyahu. Netanyahu has refused to accept calls for a two-state solution to the Middle East problem and has said he will keep fighting in Gaza until Hamas is defeated.
She will meet with Benny Gantz, who joined Netanyahu’s government as a show of support after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. The center-right Gantz is getting flak from his own government for going on the trip, where he will meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top U.S. officials to talk.
Based on the need for privacy, a Likud party source who spoke to the Associated Press said that Gantz’s trip was not approved by Netanyahu. Gantz was told by the prime minister that the country has “just one prime minister,” according to AP. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that Gantz is helping the U.S. “drive a wedge between Israelis” while also moving the plan for a two-state solution forward.
Not all Israelis were against Gantz’s trip. Daniel Danon, a lawmaker from Netanyahu’s party, said that it is fine for an Israeli minister to meet with U.S. officials.
When Harris called for a cease-fire right away on Sunday, it made news in Israel.
“People in Gaza are starving,” she said in Alabama on the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when Alabama state troopers hit peaceful civil rights protesters with batons. “The conditions are inhumane, and our common humanity compels us to act.”
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Kamala Harris urges Gaza cease-fire: Talks about the “immense scale of suffering”
Developments:
- Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, hasn’t talked to his own bargaining team in at least a week. This has made Egyptian and Qatari officials worried that a cease-fire deal could be put on hold until Sinwar gives his approval, according to the Wall Street Journal.
- On Monday, U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Beirut to talk with Lebanese leaders in an effort to keep the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants backed by Iran from getting worse.
- A group of Israeli activists living abroad called UnXeptable led hundreds of protesters to meet outside of the Red Cross building in Washington, D.C. They wanted an end to the fighting in Gaza. People like Boaz Atzili spoke. His nephew Aviv was killed in Hamas’ attack on October 7. The rebels have not let go of Aviv Atzili’s body.
Hamas won’t provide information on hostages ‘for free’
A top Hamas official told the BBC that because Israel is still bombing, it is impossible to know which militant-held hostages are still living. Basem Naim said that the hostages are being held by different groups in different places and that there needs to be a calm so that they can all be found. Naim also said that telling interesting things about the hostages would not be possible “for free.”
Israel has refused to send a delegation to Cairo for cease-fire talks because Hamas has not yet told them which hostages are still living. It did this one day after the Biden administration said on Saturday that Israel had pretty much agreed to a six-week cease-fire that would free some inmates, but Hamas hasn’t signed off on the deal yet.
UN agency investigating claims of abuse of Palestinian prisoners
The New York Times claimed that it had looked over an unpublished report from the UN agency for Palestinian affairs that says Israel abused hundreds of Palestinians detained in Gaza during the war. According to the people who wrote the report, the prisoners, who included at least 1,000 citizens who were later freed without being charged, were kept at three military sites in Israel. The inmates were men and women between the ages of 6 and 82, according to the report. Some of them said they were beaten, stripped, robbed, blindfolded, sexually abused, and not allowed to see lawyers or doctors. There were deaths in jail, the study said.
The report was made by UNRWA, which is being looked into because at least 30 of its 13,000 workers were found to have helped attack Israel on October 7.