US President Joe Biden on Thursday (local time) met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-- a day after thousands protested against the Israeli leader's visit to the United States capital amid the Gaza war-- and called on the Israeli leader to swiftly finalize a deal on a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages.
"President Biden expressed the need to close the remaining gaps, finalize the deal as soon as possible, bring the hostages home, and reach a durable end to the war in Gaza," the White House said, adding that both leaders discussed the "humanitarian crisis" in the embattled Palestinian territory and the need to remove obstacles to the flow of aid.
Signaling a major shift in United States' Gaza policy on Thursday, US Vice President Kamala Harris told Netanyahu she had "serious concern" over casualties and asked him to get a peace deal done.
Harris, who is now the presumptive Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden bowed out of the 2024 US election, also met with Netanyahu and told him that it was time to end the "devastating" war.
"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," Harris told reporters, according to news agency AFP.
"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," she added.
As per the report, the 59-year-old Presidential candidate said she pressed Netanyahu on the dire situation in the "frank" meeting. She said she "expressed with the prime minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering and Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians."
Harris also called for the establishment of a Palestinian state and went on to call on both him and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire and hostage release deal to end the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel.
"As I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done...And I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there," she said.
Harris's outspoken comments were a stark contrast to the largely amiable greetings between Biden and Netanyahu earlier in the day, even if it masked months of tensions between the two men as well as questions over the US president's relevance.