Israel has agreed to four-hour daily humanitarian pauses in areas of northern Gaza as US officials announced Thursday. The pauses, meant to allow civilians to safely leave for southern Gaza, comes amid an increasingly dire humanitarian crisis as Israel continues to bombard one of the most densely-populated places on the planet.
The windows have so far allowed 100,000 people to move, according to Israeli officials — but it’s not clear that the safe routes and pauses are enough as more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed and calls for a ceasefire grow louder.
The new agreement is the result of US pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu, with National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby telling reporters that the new policy is due to President Joe Biden’s “personal leadership and diplomacy.” But Biden was apparently unable to secure the more prolonged ceasefire he sought to secure the release of hostages, Politico reported Thursday. The US continues to supply military aid to Israel, as it has for decades, and Biden has requested an additional $14.3 billion to finance Iron Dome and other air and missile defense systems.
US officials expect that the daily pauses will also allow for increased humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, as residents have received only a fraction of the basic goods via aid organizations that they did previous to the war. Israel has blockaded Gaza for the past 16 years, since Hamas took control of the territory, and food, medicine, and fuel are supplied by the United Nations and other agencies.
While pauses offer some measure of safety for people fleeing Israel’s operations in northern Gaza, the totality of the humanitarian crisis there remains overwhelming. More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces over the past month of fighting in Gaza, and supplies like food, clean water, and fuel are dangerously limited in the south, where some 2 million people are expected to shelter as Israel…
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