Kamala Harris ‘will not be silent’ on suffering in Gaza

United States Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now running for candidacy in the upcoming presidential election, has asserted that she will not remain “silent” on the suffering in Gaza.

“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 said while speaking to reporters following her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington DC.

At the same time, she maintained that “Israel has a right to defend itself”, deeming Hamas as a “brutal terrorist organisation” that led to the “war” and had carried out ‘“horrific acts of sexual violence”.

Harris later added that “We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies [in Gaza]. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent.”

She also urged the creation of a Palestinian state, further calling for Netanyahu and Hamas to accord a ceasefire and hostage release deal to end a war that has killed “far too many” civilians.

“As I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done,” she said.