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US Vice President Calls For 'Immediate Ceasefire' In Gaza

US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Edmund Pettus Bridge during an event to commemorate the 59th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama- AFP
US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Edmund Pettus Bridge during an event to commemorate the 59th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama- AFP
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US Vice President Calls For 'Immediate Ceasefire' In Gaza

US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Edmund Pettus Bridge during an event to commemorate the 59th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama- AFP
US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Edmund Pettus Bridge during an event to commemorate the 59th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama- AFP

US Vice President Kamala Harris called Sunday for a proposed six-week ceasefire deal in the Israel-Hamas war to be accepted, while criticizing Israel over insufficient aid deliveries into Gaza.

"Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire for at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the table," Harris said during a speech in Selma, Alabama.

Her comments were the strongest to date by a US administration official on Israel since the war started, as President Joe Biden comes under acute pressure over his support for Israel and the civilian death toll in Gaza soars, AFP reported.

A senior US official said Saturday that Israel had broadly accepted the deal, which would see a six-week cessation of hostilities if Hamas agrees to release the most vulnerable hostages it holds.

The deal "will get the hostages out and get a significant amount of aid in," Harris said, calling on Hamas to accept the deal.

"Hamas claims it wants a ceasefire. Well, there is a deal on the table. And as we have said, Hamas needs to agree to that deal."

In unusually strong language, Harris called on the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take steps to increase aid into Gaza.

"The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses," Harris said.

She added that Israel "must open new border crossings" and "must not impose any unnecessary restrictions on the delivery of aid."

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made similar remarks in a post on X, saying "It is imperative that we expand the flow of aid into Gaza to alleviate the dire humanitarian situation."

He added: "People urgently need more food, water, and other assistance. That's why the US is working to get more aid in through every available channel, including air drops." These started Saturday.

Harris is due to meet with Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel's war cabinet, in Washington on Monday.

"The vice president's meeting is part of our continued efforts to engage with a wide range of Israeli officials on the war in Gaza and planning for the day after," a White House official said Sunday.

The former Israeli military chief, a longtime rival of Netanyahu, will also meet White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan and Blinken, according to US officials.

"Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed," Harris said, highlighting the deaths on Thursday in chaotic scenes around a convoy of aid trucks.

People "simply trying to secure food for their families after weeks of nearly no aid reaching northern Gaza... were met with gunfire and chaos," said Harris, adding: "Our hearts break for the victims of that horrific tragedy."

Harris delivered her remarks at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where a march by hundreds of peaceful activists was violently suppressed by police on March 7, 1965.

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Arab World

EU to Discuss Normalization of Relations with Syria

Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)
Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)
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EU to Discuss Normalization of Relations with Syria

Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)
Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)

Some European Union countries are pushing to normalize ties with Syria in order to facilitate the deportation of Syrian migrants as mainstream leaders look to replicate anti-immigrant far-right parties’ surging popularity across the Continent, according to a report by POLITICO.

The report noted that these efforts are led by Italy, whose Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Tuesday to the Italian Senate ahead of the EU leaders’ meeting, “It is necessary to review the European Union Strategy for Syria and to work with all actors, to create the conditions for Syrian refugees to return to their homeland in a voluntary, safe and sustainable way.”

After President Bashar Assad’s violent crackdown on protesters in 2011 spiraled into a bloody civil war, his government was accused of using chemical weapons on its own people and was accused of torture, the report said.

The EU cut off diplomatic ties with the country in 2011. The regime survived and its operations continued in major part due to the military support of Russia and Iran.

The civil war has since ground to a standstill and the Syrian president has faced near-total global isolation.

Two EU diplomats told POLITICO that Meloni plans to raise the relationship with Damascus during a meeting of the 27 EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

Those calls from one of the EU’s largest countries come on top of a concerted push by a group of others, some of which have hard-right or far-right parties in government (or supporting government), such as Austria and Hungary.

The push to normalize relations with war-torn Syria and its president comes after a surge in support for anti-immigrant parties after the European election in June, namely France’s National Rally and Germany’s Alternative for Germany.

In recent weeks, POLITICO said that Poland’s prime minister has drawn a rebuke from the EU executive for saying that Warsaw would suspend asylum rights for migrants coming to Poland via Belarus.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has shut his country’s borders to EU neighbors following a knife attack allegedly involving a migrant and France’s newly appointed prime minister, Michel Barnier, has said EU rules on deportations should be revised to speed up expulsions.

One EU diplomat echoed Meloni, saying Israel’s ground operations after its invasion of Lebanon in early October added momentum to the push for deporting Syrian migrants.

Nearly 200,000 Syrians and Lebanese have fled to Syria since the start of October, according to the UN.

In Europe, more than 1 million Syrian refugees and asylum seekers have arrived in the past 10 years, according to 2021 data from the UN Refugee Agency.

The POLITICO report said Assad’s government, for its part, is eager to return to the embrace of its neighbors and other global leaders.

He has led a charm offensive for years, telling Syrians who fled it is now safe to return.

More recently, Syria has been bankrolling a campaign by Syrian and Western influencers to clean up his country’s image and jumpstart tourism, which has been largely dead for a decade.

But officials have not mapped out how such a shift to normalizing ties might happen. “There is no one who says: we will pick up the phone to call Assad,” said one EU official. “Nobody dares to raise that, but it is a hidden suggestion by some.”

In July, seven EU countries (Austria, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Greece, Croatia and Cyprus) called on the EU’s foreign policy chief to review the EU’s strategy for Syria. The goal, they said, was to improve the humanitarian situation in Syria as well as help return migrants to certain regions of the country.

For others, it’s more complicated.

The Netherlands is not ready to back plans for restarting negotiations with Syria as it is not considered a safe country according to the Dutch domestic assessment, its Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp told POLITICO.

“The Dutch policy is that Syria is not secure to return asylum seekers. If that will happen in the future, [it] depends on the whole mechanism which is depoliticized [for] the Netherlands to decide to what extent Syria is secure, safe enough for the return of migrants,” he added.

The EU foreign policy chief’s response to the letter from seven EU countries was curt.

“How the Syrian regime has been operating for decades is well known and documented, including with the direct support of both Russia and Iran,” Josep Borrell wrote in a letter dated August 28 and obtained by POLITICO.

“That said, rest assured that the EU has always been ready to explore ways to better support the Syrian people and its legitimate aspirations.”

But some within the EU are adamant it is time to, at the very least, start a discussion, even if it is “too early to say whether we can succeed in anything,” one senior EU diplomat said.

“Assad is there, there is no whitewashing of him but Europe has taken in over 1.2 million Syrian citizens,” said Austria’s Alexander Schallenberg, federal minister for European and international affairs.

“Our proposal is an open-minded assessment: where do we stand, where should we go, because we are simply not achieving the results we would like to achieve.”