Skip to main content

US Says Israel To Begin Four-Hour "Pauses" In Gaza

By
US Says Israel To Begin Four-Hour 'Pauses' In Gaza

Biden has also warned Iran and its ally Hezbollah against widening the conflict.

Washington:

Israel has agreed to daily four-hour military pauses in northern Gaza for humanitarian purposes, the White House said Thursday, even as President Joe Biden said there was no chance of a full ceasefire.

Biden has been pressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for longer breaks in the fighting after more than a month of war sparked by the October 7 attacks by Hamas.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the pauses were "significant steps forward" as heavy fighting took hold of Gaza City in the north of the Gaza strip.

"Israel will begin to implement four-hour pauses in areas of northern Gaza each day, with an announcement to be made three hours beforehand," Kirby told reporters.

"We've been told by the Israelis that there will be no military operations in these areas over the duration of the pause (and) that this process is starting today."

The pauses would allow humanitarian aid to get into the area and allow civilians to flee the fighting, he said.

Israel had also opened up "humanitarian corridors" for the past few days that had already allowed "many thousands" of people to leave the worst-hit area of north Gaza to the south, Kirby added.

"We would like to see pauses continue for as long as humanitarian assistance is needed," he said.

Fighting has raged since gunmen from the Islamist group Hamas poured over the Gaza border with Israel and, according to Israeli officials, killed 1,400 people and seized about 240 hostages in the worst attack in the country's history.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel retaliated with an aerial bombing and ground offensive that the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip says has killed more than 10,500 people, many of them children.

- 'No possibility' -

International calls for a ceasefire have mounted, as have protests, including one at the weekend which targeted the White House. However, Biden ruled out a longer truce for now.

"None. No possibility," Biden told reporters as he left the White House for a trip to Illinois when asked about the chances of a ceasefire.

He said he was "still optimistic" about freeing hostages -- including the fewer than 10 US citizens held in Gaza. "We're not going to stop until we get them out."

He later confirmed that in a call with Netanayhu that "I've asked for a pause longer than three days". When asked if he was frustrated with Netanyahu, he said, "it's taken a little longer than I hoped."

The United States has firmly stood by key ally Israel since the attacks, saying that Hamas cannot be allowed to remain in control of Gaza.

But Washington has also been publicly calling on the Israeli military to obey the "laws of war" and avoid civilian casualties, while privately pushing Israel to scale back its offensive and to develop a plan for what comes next.

Biden visited Israel in October in a show of support. During the trip he announced that Egypt had agreed to open the Rafah crossing into southern Gaza to let aid trucks in.

Israel has pressed on with its offensive and has encircled northern Gaza in recent days. It said Thursday it had fought a 10-hour battle that toppled one of the Palestinian militants' strongholds.

The army said 50,000 people had fled their homes in the main battle zone of northern Gaza on Wednesday, a sharp increase in numbers from earlier this week, adding to the more than 1.5 million people already seeking safety in the south of the coastal strip.

Biden has also warned Iran and its ally Hezbollah against widening the conflict, but repeated attacks on US forces by Tehran's proxies in recent weeks have raised tensions.

Asked why US warplanes had carried out fresh strikes on an Iran-linked weapons facility in eastern Syria on Wednesday, Biden said "because they struck us" and said US forces would strike again "if we have to."

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Adblock test (Why?)



from NDTV News- Special https://ift.tt/g6U1uIx https://ift.tt/3ijLrzY
via IFTTT

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

US Defense Chief Austin To Make 'Full Recovery' From Cancer: Doctors

By
Austin, a 70-year-old career soldier, initially underwent minor surgery to treat cancer on December 22. Washington: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is likely to make a "full recovery" from prostate cancer and his prognosis is "excellent," two doctors said after he was seen at Walter Reed hospital for a follow-up appointment. Austin controversially kept US President Joe Biden in the dark about the cancer diagnosis for weeks, and did not inform either the commander-in-chief or Congress until days after he was hospitalized on January 1 for complications from his treatment. "Secretary Austin was seen today at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a scheduled post-prostatectomy surveillance appointment," the doctors said in a statement released by the Pentagon. "He continues to recover well and is expected to make a full recovery. Secretary Austin's prostate cancer was treated early and effectively, and his prognosis is excellent,...
Post a Comment
Read more

North Korea Says It Tested New Strategic Cruise Missile

By
North Korea test-fired a new generation of strategic cruise missile on Wednesday. (Representational) Seoul: North Korea fired several cruise missiles towards the Yellow Sea on Wednesday, Seoul's military said, the latest in a series of tension-raising moves by the nuclear-armed state. Hours later, North Korea appeared to confirm the firing, saying it had carried out its first test of a new generation of strategic cruise missiles it is developing, the Pulhwasal-3-31. Pyongyang has accelerated weapons testing in the new year, including tests of what it called an "underwater nuclear weapon system" and a solid-fuelled hypersonic ballistic missile. "Our military detected several cruise missiles launched by North Korea towards the Yellow Sea at around 7:00 am today," the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. Unlike their ballistic counterparts, the testing of cruise missiles is not banned under current UN sanctions against Pyongyang. Cruise...
Post a Comment
Read more

US "Deplores" Israeli Attack On UN Training Center In Gaza

By
More than 25,000 people have been killed in Gaza since war began against Hamas. Washington: The United States was concerned by an Israeli attack on a U.N. training center sheltering displaced people in Gaza's Khan Younis on Wednesday, Deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said, repeating Washington's calls for protection of civilians, humanitarian workers and aid facilities. "We deplore today's attack on the U.N.'s Khan Younis training center," Patel told a news briefing, calling it "incredibly concerning." The Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza said that nine Palestinians were killed and 75 were injured when two tank rounds hit the building that was sheltering around 800 people in the southern Gaza Strip. "Civilians must be protected, and the protected nature of UN facilities must be respected, and humanitarian workers must be protected so that they can continue providing civilians with the life-saving humanitarian assistance...
Post a Comment
Read more