Biden, Netanyahu discuss war in Gaza, possible cease-fire; Harris takes firm line

washington — U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday brought Israel's leader into the calm eye of America's political storm, as the two tried to hash out a lasting peace to silence the suffering in Gaza. But it was Biden's vice president who took a sharper tone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying she had "serious concern" about the scale of human suffering in the besieged exclave.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been campaigning this week after Biden stepped out of the presidential race, also stepped ahead of the president's usually measured rhetoric. She began by echoing Biden's sentiment that Israel has a right to defend itself and urged Netanyahu to accept a cease-fire plan. And then:

"I also expressed with the prime minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians," she said. "And I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there with over 2 million people facing high levels of food insecurity and half a million people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity. What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating."

Her strong words were amplified by protesters outside the White House on Thursday, who object to Netanyahu's military's conduct in Gaza and want Biden to dial back his support.

'Good discussion'

The White House said the meeting with Biden was productive but didn't cite any breakthroughs.

"This was a good discussion with Prime Minister Netanyahu," John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser, told VOA. "The president had a chance to lay out his concerns about where we are on the cease-fire deal, and seek to get closure on that, as well as to talk about a range of other issues, [like] Iran's destabilizing activities, tensions at the blue line [a border demarcation] with Lebanon, the need for more humanitarian assistance getting to the people of Gaza. There was a lot on the agenda."

On Friday, Netanyahu meets with the Republican nominee for president in 2024, former President Donald Trump.

This trio of meetings is obviously a delicate political balancing act for the Israeli leader, but some pro-Israeli analysts argue that Netanyahu's defiance of Washington has garnered results.

"There's more likelihood of a cease-fire now than there was a couple of months ago, before Israel went into Rafah," said Michael Makovsky, president and chief executive of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. "Vice President Harris told them they shouldn't go in or there'll be consequences. Biden didn't want him to go in. It turned out actually to be a pretty successful mission. They haven't finished Rafah, but they were able to quickly move a lot of the Palestinian civilians into other areas so they, the Israeli military, could fight Hamas."

A senior administration official on Wednesday told reporters during a background briefing that the White House meeting would include discussion of threats to Israel from Iran-backed groups in the Middle East such as Hamas, Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthi militants.

In addition to the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Biden and Netanyahu's agenda also included talk about efforts to secure a deal to halt the fighting, free the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, release some Palestinian prisoners from Israel and surge humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza.

The United States has been working with Egypt and Qatar to broker the cease-fire talks, which have stretched on for months amid competing demands from Israel and Hamas.

The official said there is a framework in place for the first stage of an envisioned three-stage agreement, and that the U.S. expects "a lot of activity over the coming week" as negotiators try to seal an agreement.

The first stage would last for 42 days and include Hamas releasing some of the hostages, including women, men over age 50, and those who are sick and wounded. The U.S. official said what is left to figure out are the implementation steps for the first phase, "how it will actually work day-to-day."

"There are some things we need from Hamas, and there are some things we need from the Israeli side," the official said.

Meeting with families

Following their meeting, Biden and Netanyahu met with the families of the Americans who are among the hostages.

"We came today with a sense of urgency," said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of American Israeli hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen. "So as families, we came in really emphasizing to the leaders of the United States and of Israel a desire to get this deal done, this three-phase deal that the president announced a few weeks ago and has been on the negotiating table."

But Netanyahu's defiance puts his desire for a deal into question. On Wednesday, he went before the U.S. Congress and delivered a speech defending his country's war against Hamas and vowing to pursue the fight against Palestinian militants until "total victory" and the return of the remaining hostages are secured.

With thousands of pro-Palestinian, anti-war protesters in the streets outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday and more than 50 Democratic lawmakers boycotting his speech, Netanyahu said he was confident that negotiations for a cease-fire would eventually succeed. But he gave no hint of a breakthrough in the stalemated, monthslong talks.

Instead, he blamed Hamas for the continuation of the war. He attacked Iran for its funding of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, while assailing the nearby protesters and those at U.S. college campuses in recent months as "Iran's useful idiots" helping Israel's enemies.

The Israeli-Hamas war started with the October 7 Hamas terror attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of about 250 hostages. Israel's subsequent counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people as of Thursday, most of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. In May, Israel estimated the death toll at 30,000 and said that most of the dead were combatants.

Begum Ersoz contributed to this report from the White House; Kim Lewis contributed from Washington.