Prime Minister Netanyahu, in what could become an important moment in the American presidential campaign, is reportedly livid over a press statement Vice President Harris issued after meeting him late Thursday. He fears it could give Hamas the impression that there is light — meaning differences — between Israel and the Biden administration over the negotiations with the terrorist group. 

“Hopefully the remarks Harris made in her press conference won’t be interpreted by Hamas as daylight between the U.S. and Israel, thereby making a deal harder to secure,” an unidentified senior Israeli official told Israeli reporters in a briefing widely cited by the Hebrew press. The official responded to a statement Ms. Harris read to a press gaggle after her meeting with Mr. Netanyahu. 

On Friday Reuters reported that Hamas indeed rejected an Israeli updated proposal that Mr. Netanyahu has discussed with President Biden on Thursday. “The Israelis want a vetting mechanism for civilian populations returning to northern Gaza,” an unidentified source told the agency. The rejection came even before the Israeli team handed its updated proposal to meditators at Doha, Qatar.  

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s statement was punctuated by defiant words — such as her statement, “I will not be silent” in face of Palestinian suffering in Gaza. It seemed written in advance of her meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, as the Israeli briefer said that the premier gave her “detailed factual” data to counter some of her concerns about the humanitarian situation there, which she ignored in her statement.  

The Israelis indicated that they were taken by surprise that Ms. Harris made a public post-meeting statement without alerting them in advance. They were mostly concerned about the vice president’s emphasis on Gaza suffering and the need to end the war “now.” Their fear is that this could harm — undercut — Mr. Netanyahu’s demand that Israeli troops would have clearance to continue fighting Hamas in Gaza after an initial six-week cessation as part of the deal. 

“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” an unidentified aide to the vice president said in response. “President Biden and Vice President Harris delivered the same message in their private meetings to Prime Minister Netanyahu: It’s time to get the cease-fire and hostage deal done, and this is what the vice president said publicly as well.”

Yet, commentators noted Ms. Harris’s new tone. “Wow. Kamala Harris signals big shift on Gaza after talks with Netanyahu,” Agence France Presse’s White House correspondent, Danny Kemp, wrote on X. “Says she ‘will not be silent’ on suffering there, told Netanyahu of ‘serious concern’ over casualties and aid, tells him it’s ‘time to get this deal done.’”

In her remarks, Ms. Harris urged reporters to avoid taking sides in the Gaza war, where a democracy, America’s most reliable Mideast ally, is battling a group that the Biden administration and other recent American governments list as terrorists. Even after acknowledging that Hamas is a “brutal terror organization,” the vice president said that “it is important for the American people to remember, the war in Gaza is not a binary issue.” 

Yet, she added, “too often, the conversation is binary, when the reality is anything but. So I ask my fellow Americans to help encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.” The Israeli briefer said that such talk indicates a need to put a distance between America and its Israeli ally. “The more the gap widens between our countries, the more we move away from a deal and thus also increase the possibility of a regional escalation,” the top Israeli official told reporters.