Harris Says Hamas Leader’s Killing Offers Chance to End Gaza War

 

Harris Says Hamas Leader’s Killing Offers Chance to End Gaza War

 

“It is time for the day after to begin without Hamas in power,” the vice president said after the Israeli military confirmed that Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the militant group, had been killed.

 

By Katie Rogers and Reid J. Epstein

Katie Rogers reported from Washington, and Reid J. Epstein reported from Green Bay, Wis.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/17/us/politics/harris-yahya-sinwar-hamas-israel-gaza.html

Oct. 17, 2024

Updated 5:29 p.m. ET

 

Declaring that “justice has been served,” Vice President Kamala Harris said on Thursday that the killing of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader whom she called the “mastermind” of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, created an opportunity to end the war in Gaza.

 

Ms. Harris spoke shortly after Israeli officials confirmed the death of Mr. Sinwar, who was viewed as the architect of the Hamas-led attack, in which militants killed roughly 1,200 people and took about 250 others hostage.

 

“This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza, and it must end such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination,” Ms. Harris said at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee during a campaign visit. “It is time for the day after to begin without Hamas in power.”

 

Ms. Harris, who spoke for three minutes, did not answer questions from reporters asking if she would directly call on Israel to end the war in Gaza. She gave her remarks just minutes after President Biden — who was aboard Air Force One en route to a diplomatic visit in Berlin focused on ending the conflict in Ukraine — issued a public statement on the killing. Ms. Harris and her advisers were told to wait until Mr. Biden’s statement went public before stepping in front of the cameras, according to a senior administration official briefed on the plans.

 

Still, the appearance of the vice president stepping out in front of the cameras before the president underscored just how much scrutiny has been directed at her support of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The war has sharply divided Americans, especially younger ones, and continues to threaten her standing with key voters in battleground states.

 

As a presidential candidate, Ms. Harris has defied political pressure to break from her administration’s support of Israel and Mr. Biden’s increasingly strained embrace of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

 

In interviews and statements, she has offered small departures from Mr. Biden but has been careful not to hint that a Harris presidency would drastically change the nature of the United States’ relationship with Israel.

 

In an interview last week with the CBS news program “60 Minutes,” Ms. Harris avoided repeated questions about how to end the yearlong war in Gaza, or whether the administration had lost all sway with Mr. Netanyahu. Also last week, she was on the secure line when Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu spoke by phone for the first time in months, as U.S. national security officials grew more worried about a widening war in the Middle East.

 

Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said Ms. Harris’s strategy in the weeks ahead should not be limited to talking points but should demonstrate what she would do as commander in chief to bring an end to the conflict.

 

“It’s only going to help them if they can bring it to a close, and not just in aspiration terms but actually take steps that align with what they say,” Mr. Elgindy said. “This is a great opportunity to make distance between the failure of the last year of the Biden White House and what she would do differently.”

 

There is no sign of that yet from Ms. Harris, who on Thursday emphasized that the war had caused “unconscionable suffering of many innocent Palestinians and greater instability throughout the Middle East,” but largely still followed Mr. Biden’s lead.

 

In his statement, Mr. Biden said that Mr. Sinwar’s killing had rendered Hamas “no longer capable of carrying out another Oct. 7.” The president said that he would be speaking soon with Mr. Netanyahu to discuss the return of hostages and “ending this war once and for all” — a more direct tack than Ms. Harris took in her remarks.

 

Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, told reporters on Air Force One that Mr. Sinwar’s death should “present an opportunity to find a way forward that gets the hostages home, brings the war to an end, brings us to a ‘day after.’” Mr. Sullivan said the administration was planning to talk about the future of Gaza with its Israeli counterparts.

 

Before she spoke in Milwaukee, Ms. Harris’s motorcade was greeted by protesters, who yelled “Free Palestine” and “We charge you with genocide” as her S.U.V. drove past.

 

There is growing fear among Democrats that Ms. Harris’s decision not to take a harder line against Israel will cost her the votes she needs to win the election, particularly in a battleground state like Michigan, home to a significant population of Arab American and Muslim voters.

 

Leaders of the Uncommitted National Movement, the group that mobilized hundreds of thousands of primary voters to cast protest ballots against Mr. Biden and said last month that it would not endorse Ms. Harris, signaled that a cease-fire would not be enough to regain its confidence.

 

“If we keep sending bombs to the Israeli government, Netanyahu will continue to collectively punish Palestinian civilians as he has for years,” Layla Elabed, the group’s co-founder, said in a statement. “Ending the war means ending our role in funding Israel’s militarism.”

 

Representative Haley Stevens of Michigan said Democrats wanted to hear Ms. Harris continue to position herself as a “responsible commander in chief” who would keep American troops out of a conflict in the Middle East while supporting both Israel and the right of Palestinians to determine their own future.

 

But Ms. Stevens cautioned that she did not believe Ms. Harris could win back the votes of voters who “don’t want Israel to exist.”

 

She added: “You have to understand the pushing here is really for a one-state solution on behalf of some. And that is never anything that the Democratic Party nor our Democratic nominee is going to articulate.”

 

Erica Green, Zolan Kanno-Youngsand Nicholas Nehamas contributed reporting from Washington.

 

Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent. For much of the past decade, she has focused on features about the presidency, the first family, and life in Washington, in addition to covering a range of domestic and foreign policy issues. She is the author of a book on first ladies. More about Katie Rogers

 

Reid J. Epstein covers campaigns and elections from Washington. Before joining The Times in 2019, he worked at The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Newsday and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. More about Reid J. Epstein