“It’s taken a little longer than I hoped,” President Joe Biden told reporters of his discussions with Israel.
After days of talks with top Biden administration officials, Israel will begin to implement short humanitarian “pauses” in the fighting in northern Gaza each day, the White House announced.
Starting on Thursday, the four-hour “pauses” in operations in Gaza will allow humanitarian aid to flow into the area and civilians to get out of harm’s way, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
The news comes after top administration officials, including President Joe Biden himself, ramped up efforts to pressure their Israeli counterparts to pause the fighting for humanitarian purposes. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have also spoken with their counterparts about the issue, Kirby said.
The announcement is a “direct result” of President Joe Biden’s “personal leadership and diplomacy,” Kirby said.
