Israel has said it aims to completely destroy Hamas, a Palestinian militant group that has vowed to destroy the Zionist Israeli state and which won elections in Gaza in 2006.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement on Thursday disputing claims from the White House that there would be daily four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in the assault on the Gaza Strip to allow for refugees to flee and essential goods to enter the territory.The refutation was carried by Israeli media on Thursday, which also quoted a spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).Earlier Thursday, John Kirby, the spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, told reporters in Washington that Israel had agreed to give daily four-hour windows of time, as well as a three-hour advance, in which it would halt its attacks in northern Gaza.Ceasefire or Pause?Kirby’s claim came after the Biden administration had been lobbying Jerusalem for several days to allow humanitarian pauses of up to 48 hours to permit refugees to flee from the war zone and for food, water, medicine, and other basic goods to enter the territory.Asked about such a pause in an interview with US media on Monday, Netanyahu didn’t dismiss the idea, but offered “an hour here, an hour there … in order to enable goods, humanitarian goods to come in, or our hostages, individual hostages to leave.
