Trump calls Harris remarks on Gaza war ‘disrespectful’ as he meets Netanyahu

Andrew Roth

Donald Trump has called Kamala Harris’s statement on the Israel-Gaza war “disrespectful” before a meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Florida to discuss the conflict.

Harris, the US vice-president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, had seemed to mark a change of tone on the Israel-Gaza war on Thursday after her own meeting with Netanyahu, when she declared she would “not be silent” about the suffering of Palestinians.

Trump criticised Harris on Friday before his meeting at his Mar-a-Lago home, calling her remarks “disrespectful” as he targeted her over an issue that has split the Democratic party.

“They weren’t very nice pertaining to Israel,” Trump said. “I actually don’t know how a person who is Jewish could vote for her, but that’s up to them.”

Right-wing Israeli politicians attacked Harris and anonymous officials have suggested the remarks could make it more difficult to conclude a ceasefire deal.

“I think to the extent that Hamas understands there’s no daylight between Israel and the United States, that expedites the deal,” said Netanyahu to reporters at his meeting with Trump. “And I would hope that those comments don’t change that.”

A Harris aide rejected a report in the Times of Israel that a senior official had said that Harris’ criticism would hinder the conclusion of a deal.

“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” a Harris aide told CNN.

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Israel’s military ordered the evacuation on Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.

According to the Associated Press (AP), the order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It’s the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel’s air and ground campaign.

On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, citing figures from Nasser hospital.

The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war.

The AP reports that much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities, and have limited access to aid, United Nations (UN) and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel’s estimates. That’s more than half Gaza’s prewar population of 2.3 million.

It has gone 10am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. This is our latest live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis.

More than 180,000 Palestinians have fled fierce fighting around the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis in four days, the UN said on Friday, after an Israeli operation to extract captives’ bodies from the area.

Recent “intensified hostilities” in the Khan Younis area have fuelled “new waves of internal displacement across Gaza”, said the UN humanitarian agency, OCHA.

It said “about 182,000 people” had been displaced from central and eastern Khan Younis between Monday and Thursday, and hundreds were “stranded in eastern Khan Younis”.

The Israeli military on Monday ordered the evacuation of parts of the city, announcing its forces would “forcefully operate” there, including in an area previously declared a safe humanitarian zone. On Wednesday, Israel said five bodies of captives seized during Hamas’s 7 October attack had been recovered from the area.

Israel’s military said on Friday that its forces had “eliminated approximately 100 terrorists” in the city this week.

Israel’s military chief, Lieut Gen Herzi Halevi, said the captives’ bodies were pulled from underground tunnels and walls in “a hidden place”.

Witnesses and rescuers said heavy battles continued around eastern Khan Yuonis on Friday. The Nasser hospital said 26 bodies were brought to the site.

In other news:

• An Israeli official has criticised US vice-president Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency, after she said it was time for the war in Gaza to end given the suffering being caused by the fighting. Harris’s remarks at a press conference, after a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, reflect the growing pressure on the Israeli prime minister to reach a deal with Hamas to end the fighting in Gaza.

• Britain said on Friday it would not proceed with efforts to question whether the international criminal court (ICC) has jurisdiction to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and the defence minister, Yoav Gallant. In May, the ICC’s prosecutor said he had requested arrest warrants for the two as well as three Hamas leaders over alleged war crimes.

• Netanyahu visited Donald Trump at the former president’s Florida resort, concluding the Israeli leader’s week-long US visit that has been marked by large protests against the war. The two men have had a strained relationship in the past after Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden on his victory in the 2020 election, but on Friday photographs showed Trump warmly greeting Netanyahu and the two appeared to have reconciled. “We’ve always had a good relationship,” Trump said before the meeting, while also saying Harris’s statement on the Gaza war was “disrespectful”.

• CIA director William Burns will meet on Sunday in Rome with his Israeli and Egyptian counterparts and Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman, for talks on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. The CIA declined to comment.

• The prime ministers of Australia, Canada and New Zealand have declared that a ceasefire in Gaza is “needed desperately” and urged Israel to “listen to the concerns of the international community”. The leaders’ joint statement on Friday said they were “gravely concerned about the prospect of further escalation across the region”, including between Hezbollah and Israel.

• The World Food Programme has been forced to reduce rations for families in Gaza to ensure broader coverage for newly displaced people, it said on Friday. “Food stocks and humanitarian supplies in central and southern Gaza are very limited and barely any commercial supplies are going in,” WFP posted on X.

• A Hamas leader in the West Bank died in Israeli custody after a deterioration in his health condition, a Palestinian governmental body said. Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara, 63, died after being transferred to a hospital from the Ramon jail in southern Israel, the Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs said.