Live updates: Election news on the Trump rally at Butler and Harris in North Carolina

In a side room backstage at a campaign rally Friday in Flint, Michigan, Arab American advocates called on Vice President Kamala Harris to deviate from President Joe Biden's Israel policy and do more to push for an end to the war in Gaza.

According to Wa'el Alzayat, CEO of Emgage Action, a group that aims to strengthen the voices of Muslim Americans, the conversation that was scheduled to last 10 minutes ended up lasting 20 minutes. Harris made no promises, he said, but told them “that she also wants the war to end and that she will do everything she can to assist in that regard.”

“She has promised to work with our community, engage our community, and (said) she completely understands what we are saying. She is confident that if she wins, she will be able to achieve all of this once she is president,” Alzayat told CNN.

The Emgage Action leader said he and other Arab American leaders in the room had been contacted and invited within the last 48 hours. Their message to Harris was simple, he said. She must “show distance between the way she would govern on this issue and the current government policy, which we do not agree with.”

Further context: The meeting came amid growing frustration over Harris' response to Israel's recent escalations in Lebanon and concerns that her campaign was unwilling to hear critical voices. Harris is hamstrung in part because of her position: vice presidents do not set U.S. foreign policy.

But as the ongoing Israel-Hamas war has expanded into a multi-front conflict involving Iran, which fired rockets into Israel this week, and Iranian-backed groups in Lebanon and Yemen, prominent Arab American groups are pushing for more .

Read more about Arab American advocates meeting with Harris.