Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s team declared that “the fighting continues” in the Gaza Strip in an apparent rebuff of President Joe Biden’s desire for a sustained humanitarian “pause” in the war against Hamas.
“The fighting continues, and there will be no ceasefire without the release of our hostages,” Netanyahu’s office said on Thursday. “Israel is allowing safe passage through humanitarian corridors from the northern Gaza Strip to the south, which 50,000 Gazans utilized just yesterday.”
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U.S. officials aim to orchestrate a “very significant pause” in the conflict in Gaza as part of a wider effort to deliver humanitarian aid and secure the release of the hostages whom Hamas terrorists seized during their rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7. Biden’s team announced earlier Thursday that Israel has agreed “to implement four-hour pauses” for evacuations, but Israeli officials have hastened to downplay the scope of those pauses.
“We’re seeing people move, tens of thousands, even though there is pressure from Hamas not to let them go,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said on Thursday, characterizing the latest decision as a “tactical pause for the movement from a specific area [to the] south.”
Biden has made a pronounced effort to project solidarity with Israel over the last month despite a frosty relationship with Netanyahu, with his administration emphasizing Israel’s right to self-defense and condemning Hamas for using human shields during the war. Yet U.S. officials have also gradually signaled that Israel needs to “minimize civilian casualties” to a greater degree than it has, and Biden acknowledged that Netanyahu is resisting his push for a longer respite from the conflict.
“I’ve asked for even a longer pause for some of them,” Biden told reporters on Thursday when asked to confirm reports that U.S. officials have sought “a pause for three days” to clear the path for a hostage release. “Taking a little longer than I had hoped.”
Hamas seized more than 200 hostages in the course of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. Senior Hamas leaders in the opening weeks of the war maintained they would release the hostages in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody. Netanyahu, for his part, has said that Hamas’s agreement to release the hostages is a precondition for a ceasefire. U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials reportedly met on Thursday in Qatar, which hosts Hamas’s political office, but Israeli officials maintained that Hamas has not made a “viable” offer.
“There is no real proposal that is viable from Hamas’s side on this issue. ... According to my knowledge, up to now, there is no real substantial information that is showing any real offer of any process on the table,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog told NBC News on Thursday. “We are working both on the military fronts and on all other fronts to bring them back home.”
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Those negotiations have unfolded in parallel to a more fundamental dispute about the civilian casualties in Gaza. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has accused Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes, including Israel’s “unlawful forcible evacuation of civilians.” Yet Israeli officials have countered that the evacuation is a necessary remedy to Hamas’s use of civilians as human shields, even as Hamas officials have urged the civilians not to evacuate.
“We take everything into account. First, we want all the Palestinian [noncombatants] to leave Gaza City. That is important so that we have freedom of action [against Hamas],” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday. “We don’t want to harm them. Those who don’t head south are placing themselves in danger. We have methods … to ensure that those who leave are those who are supposed to leave and that we get our hands on all the rest.”