Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff continued their visit in Los Angeles Thanksgiving week, making an unscheduled pit stop at the Venice Bakery for Small Business Saturday where the former addressed the current hostage exchange between Hamas and Israel.
Earlier today, news reports read that there was a slowdown in Israeli hostages being released from Gaza after Hamas disputed aid and prisoners. The U.S, Qatar and Egypt were involved in talks to resolve the delay. CNN reported that a group of hostages leaving Gaza in a Red Cross Convoy. Yesterday, 24 hostages were released from Gaza and 39 Palestinian prisoners were released from Israeli jails amid the four-day cease-fire.
“We’re extremely grateful that hostages were released yesterday,” the Vice President said in front of the Venice Bakery, “and we’re looking forward to again another grouping released today.”
“There were some issues and challenges around implementation,” she said addressing this morning’s complications, “President Biden spoke with the Emir (of Qatar) to resolve those issue and we do believe they are being resolved.”
Speaking about the four-day truce, Harris said, “This moment of pause is extraordinarily important to get humanitarian aid in. It’s also important to ensure that hostages can come out. So, we’re going to continue to be diligent and vigilant in doing all that we can in that regard to ensure that there’s humanitarian aid going in, and that hostages are going out and our highest priority, of course, are the American citizens being held.”
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The VP and Second Gentleman’s appearance mid-day Saturday was more tranquil next to the protests they received earlier this week at a re-election fundraiser where there were two dozen pro-Palestinian demonstrators, some of whom reportedly threw fake blood outside the home of entertainment attorney Cliff Gilbert-Lurie and Leslie Gilbert-Lurie where the event was held.
Both Harris and Emhoff addressed the Israel-Gaza war protests and POTUS and Veep’s re-election electoral chances at that Hollywood fundraiser. In response to an interruption by someone at the event calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, Harris replied, “We live in a democracy. This is a very difficult time and it’s important that we all agree that people should have the freedom to have their voices heard.”
She referred to the fight against antisemitism and Islamophobia. “We’ve already been dealing with hate in various forms these last several years.”