US vice-president Kamala Harris has bluntly called out Israel for not doing enough to ease a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza as the Biden administration faces increasing pressure to rein in its close ally while it wages war with Hamas militants, writes The Guardian.

Harris, speaking on Sunday in front of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where state troopers beat US civil rights marchers nearly six decades ago, called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and urged Hamas to accept a deal to release hostages in return for a 6-week cessation of hostilities.

But she directed the bulk of her comments at Israel in what appeared to be the sharpest rebuke yet by a senior leader in the US government over the conditions in the coastal enclave.

“People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane and our common humanity compels us to act”, Harris said at an event to commemorate the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Alabama.

“The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses”, - she added.