Israel-Hamas war: Why this week could be critical for Gaza as US vice president shifts tone
Kamala Harris’s speech marked a shift in tone and maybe a subtle shift in language, but not much more than that. Yet the week ahead could still be critical.
The vice president spoke of the situation in Gaza as “devastating… a humanitarian catastrophe” and she had some pointed messaging for Israel – “it must increase flow of aid, restore basic services – no excuses”.
She echoed some of what President Joe Biden said on Friday when he called for “more routes to get more and more people the help they need. No excuses”.
There was a tonal shift, but beyond that her speech did not mark a policy change by the American administration.
The vice president was calling for a ceasefire, yes, but she was addressing Hamas, not Israel.
“Hamas claims it wants a ceasefire,” she said. “Well, there is a deal on the table. And as we have said, Hamas needs to agree to that deal.”
The framework of a deal to allow for a six-week ceasefire has been in place for a few weeks now. Despite talks in Doha, Paris and Cairo, the two sides have failed to find the common ground that would allow them to close the deal.
As we understand it, Israel has not sent a delegation to the latest round of talks this weekend in Cairo because Hamas has yet to respond to specific questions about the number of hostages still alive and about how many of the hostages it is willing to release in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
For context, there are thought to be 134 hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. The precise number still alive is not clear and Hamas said last week that seven had been killed during an Israeli airstrike.
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Israel holds about 9,000 Palestinian prisoners, according to NGO groups, including 2,070 who have been sentenced for crimes (mostly in military courts), 2,656 remanded and a further 3,558 “administrative detainees” held without charge or trial on the grounds that they plan to break the law in the future.
There are currently more Palestinians held in administrative detention than at any other time in decades.
Hamas had demanded the release of thousands of Palestinians from Israeli prisons in exchange for hostages. This has been the main sticking point in the ceasefire negotiations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was “delusional” and Biden called it “over the top”. The swap ratio is key and unresolved.
And so, despite Harris’s Sunday evening words, there is no obvious shift yet in the talks. With a framework in place, agreement could come fast or it could remain deadlocked.
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US airdrops reflect fundamental failure
Biden’s ice cream parlour hope of a deal by the start of this week seems like wishful thinking. The start of Ramadan this coming weekend is a goal for negotiators.
Tension between Israelis and Palestinians is always high in Jerusalem during Ramadan. Quite apart from the relief for Gazans and Israeli hostage families, a ceasefire by Ramadan would help to lower tensions in Jerusalem.
Two things have changed that will have helped to mould Harris’s language. The humanitarian situation in Gaza is spiralling. The White House cannot ignore this. And domestic American politics is now sinking in.
Biden’s campaign team were unquestionably alarmed by the results of the Michigan Democratic primary where a staggering 100,000 people voted “uncommitted” in a coordinated protest of his handling of the Gaza crisis.
Michigan protest organisers in the key swing state where there is a large Muslim population had hoped to garner 10,000 “uncommitted” votes. They managed 10 times as many.
Read more:
Analysis – A fresh truce could be highly significant
Analysis – Airdrops illustrate just how much of a disaster Gaza is
Exclusive: The company making millions from Gaza misery
Senior Israeli war cabinet minister and pre-war opposition leader Benny Gantz arrived last night in Washington for talks over the next few days.
He will meet the vice president and the secretary of state Antony Blinken. Ceasefire progress will be a focus, but possibly succession talks too.
With growing unease – within Israel and beyond – about the suitability of Prime Minister Netanyahu, Gantz is an obvious successor who leads the polls.
This coming week will be critical.
Elon Musk could be on track for a $1trn pay packet.
Tesla shareholders have approved the whopping financial package for the CEO – who’s already worth an estimated $491bn – if he hits a series of ambitious targets over the next 10 years.
But that $1trn figure (or £761,910,000,000) – which is both one thousand billion and one million million – is almost impossible to imagine for most people.
Even so, we have drilled down into the numbers and examined what you can do with a trillion US dollars – and it turns out, quite a lot.
Show me the money
Laid end to end, a trillion one-dollar bills would cover a distance of approximately 156 billion metres.
That could wrap around the equator 3,890 times, easily reach the sun from Earth (around 149.6 million km) or loop from Earth to the moon 405 times.
That many one-dollar notes could cover a massive area (roughly 10,339 km squared), meaning you could blanket nearly all of Lebanon or Jamaica in bills.
Spend it on sport
You could splash out on virtually all of the world’s major sporting leagues.
The clubs which make up the Premier League are relatively cheap ($30bn), and even when snapping up the UEFA Champions League clubs and the big five top divisions of Spain, Italy, Germany, and France, there’s still $858bn left in the kitty.
The four major US sports leagues for ice hockey, baseball, basketball, and American football (NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL) have a rough valuation of $544bn, according to Sportico.
But then add the IPL cricket league ($120bn) and F1 ($23.1bn) and Musk still has change from an estimated total spend of $829.7bn.
Elon Musk is in the money if he hits targets set by Tesla’s shareholders. File pic: AP
Take over Tesla’s rivals
He could buy up the top 15 largest publicly traded automakers (excluding Tesla) by market capitalisation.
They would include firms like Japan’s Toyota ($275bn), Chinese automaker BYD ($120bn), and luxury brands like Ferrari ($81bn) and Mercedes-Benz ($62bn), as well as BMW ($52bn), Volkswagen ($50bn) and Ford ($48bn).
But there would still be a little change left over; the total bill would be an eye-watering $992bn.
Buy up San Diego
He could buy up every single residential property in San Diego County – valued at a total of $1trn. Seattle is just slightly out of reach at $1.1trn, according to recent data from real estate firm Zillow.
But if he wanted to buy big – there is always Tennessee. The total value of homes in the US state is estimated at $957bn. Or there is Maryland, which at $1.01trn could be bought if he can find a little more cash behind the sofa.
Sadly, he would struggle to scoop up London’s entire housing stock, which in February was valued at just under £2trn ($2.53trn), according to agents Savills.
Cities like New York ($4.6trn) and Los Angeles ($3.9trn) are also not within his budget, hosting America’s most expensive residential markets.
Do something charitable?
There is always the possibility Musk could follow in the footsteps of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who intends to give away 99% of his vast fortune over the next 20 years.
He could give every single man, woman, and child in the US a share of his cash pile. They would receive approximately $2,917.32 (£2,223.29), based on a population estimate of 342.7 million.
Although it would be roughly $14,348.79 (£10,935.20) for every person (roughly 69.6 million) in the UK.
If he wanted to give the entire globe an early Christmas present, then based on the rough world population estimate of 8.2 billion, everyone would receive $121.80 (£92.87).
Pay off the credit card
With $1trn, he could instantly rewrite history and erase debt interest payments and the government debt from dozens of the world’s sovereign nations.
Or Musk could wipe out the debts of Singapore ($1trn) or South Korea ($0.99trn) in one go, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook (Oct 2025).
But when it comes to the biggest debt-laden countries, $1trn would not even touch the sides.
The US has $38.3trn of government debt (just over one third of the total global debt pile) while the UK has a modest $4.1trn.
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