Cindy McCain calls for a Gaza cease-fire on CNN. Her daughter, Meghan, claps back.

A day after Cindy McCain went on CNN to urge a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, her daughter, Meghan, clapped back on social media.

“No ceasefire. Release the hostages.”

As executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, Cindy McCain has been warning for weeks that the Israel-Hamas war has created a hunger crisis in the Gaza Strip.

On Jan. 11, she went on CNN’s “The Lead” with host Jake Tapper to call for cease-fire.

“We are looking at famine,” Cindy said. “The only way that we can prevent this is by a cease-fire.”

The U.N. agency that Cindy McCain leads will need “safe and unfettered access in for our trucks and for our people to be able to feed” the civilian population, she said. “We’ve got to get in there. ... People are starving to death and a lot of them are children.”

Meghan McCain staunchly supports Israel

Meghan McCain is, like her father, John McCain during his life, an unabashed supporter of Israel and the Jewish people.

She has opposed cease-fires that prevent Israel from defending itself.

Since Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists attacked and slaughtered 1,200 mostly Israeli Jews, Meghan has been actively tweeting her support for Israel, its people and American Jews who face harassment and assault from anti-Israel protesters in the United States.

The Israeli counterstrike against Hamas terrorists, who embed themselves within the Palestinian civilian population and use them as human shields, is creating a human crisis that has grown more acute.

The Hamas-run Ministry of Health reports that more than 23,000 people have been killed in Gaza during the conflict, including more than 10,000 children.

Veterans like me know 'war is hell.' We must push for a cease-fire in Gaza.

Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and many other nations. As such, its statistics should be regarded with suspicion.

Hamas routinely exploits the collateral deaths of Palestinian civilians to try to marginalize Israel on the world stage.

Cindy McCain wants to avoid Gaza 'famine'

However, a report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the U.N. hunger monitoring system, shows that by Feb. 7 the entire 2.2 million population of the Gaza Strip will be at “crisis or worse” levels of hunger, reports The (U.K.) Guardian.

“When we start using the word ‘famine' ... this is something that is catastrophic,” Cindy McCain said. “It’s not just a lack of food. It then becomes an inability to regain what children have lost ... major impacts to their brains, etc.”

Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store.

Israelis have agreed to limited cease-fires in past weeks to win the continued release of about 240 people Hamas took hostage on Oct. 7. That number includes dozens of American citizens.

A permanent cease-fire would remove that Israeli leverage.

It wasn’t clear from the CNN interview whether Cindy McCain was calling for a temporary or permanent cease-fire.

The McCain maverick streak runs strong

Cindy McCain has, herself, been a longtime supporter of Israel and does not embrace the anti-Israel themes expressed by much of the international community.

She has been accused by her own staff at the World Food Program of being indifferent to its front-line workers trying to feed hungry Gazans, The Washington Post reported:

“Tensions between McCain and agency staff came to a head in a Nov. 30 call, in which WFP workers in the Middle East and North Africa also criticized her decision to appear at an event where an award in her husband’s name was given to the Israeli people, potentially compromising the agency’s efforts to feed Palestinians in Gaza, staff said.”

Meghan McCain attacks GOP field: Meghan McCain blasts GOP candidates for not attacking Trump. Did she forget about her dad?

She said in her CNN interview that some border gates are open to feed the hungry in Gaza, but that more are needed to get the trucks in to feed the larger population. Air drops are not practical, she said, because they pose a physical threat to people living in such a densely populated area.

For her part, Meghan is willing to chart a different course from her mother, who became a strong supporter of Democrat Joe Biden and now pushes for policy the Israelis and Meghan oppose.

In 2010, both Cindy and Meghan broke from John on the issue of gay marriage to protest California’s same-sex marriage ban – Proposition 8.

Apparently, the maverick streak runs strong in the McCain family.

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist with The Arizona Republic, where this column first published. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: McCains on Gaza ceasefire: Meghan picks Israel. Cindy fears famine