Israel agrees to daily four-hour pauses in Gaza assault, White House says: Updates

Editor's Note: For the latest news on the Israel-Hamas conflict, please see our live updates file here.

In a crucial breakthrough for the global effort to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, Israel has agreed to daily four-hour pauses in fighting across northern Gaza, the White House said Thursday.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the Israelis had committed to announcing each four-hour window at least three hours in advance starting Thursday. Israel also was opening a second corridor for civilians to flee the areas being pounded by Israel's military campaign aimed at wiping out Hamas after the brutal Oct. 7 attack on border communities, with a coastal road joining the territory’s main north-south highway, he said.

By Thursday night, though, there was still no sign the fighting had stopped or confirmation of such plans from Israel, Reuters reported.

"The fighting continues against the Hamas enemy, the Hamas terrorists,'' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Fox News interview that aired Thursday. "But in specific locations, for a given period of a few hours here, a few hours there, we want to facilitate a safe passage of civilians away from the zone of fighting. And we're doing that.''

Pauses in the fighting have been taking place intermittently for days while tens of thousands of civilians flee northern Gaza for the south. The U.S. and several other nations have been urging Israel to provide more time for safe passage and for the safe flow of humanitarian aid into war-battered Gaza.

Kirby also said the pauses could help the effort to win freedom for at least some of the approximately 240 hostages, including several Americans, held by Hamas and other militants since the war began. President Joe Biden told reporters he asked the Israelis for a “pause longer than three days” in talks about freeing the hostages.

US fighter jets strike Syria: Hit militia's facility in response to attacks

Developments:

∎ Palestinian Islamic Jihad released a video of two hostages Thursday − a 77-year-old woman and a 13-year-old boy − and said it would be willing to free them if its conditions are met. The militant group, which has said it's holding at least 30 hostages, did not specify the conditions.

∎ An Israeli fighter jet killed Ibrahim Abu-Maghsib, head of Hamas’ Anti-Tank Missile Unit, the Israeli military said. Maghsib directed and carried out numerous anti-tank missile launches directed at Israeli civilians and soldiers, the military said.

∎ Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf told a House panel the number of Palestinian deaths in Gaza, which its Health Ministry said Thursday has surpassed 10,800, could be even higher. It's “very possible,” she said.

∎ At least 45% of the housing in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombardment, according to the U.N., which said the territory's gross domestic product shrank by 4% in the first month of the war and would decline by 8.4% − the equivalent of $1.7 billion − if the conflict extends through a second month.

∎ Western and Arab officials gathered in Paris on Thursday to discuss ways of providing more aid to civilians in Gaza. The talks come one day after the Group of Seven democracies called for the unimpeded delivery of food, water, medicine and fuel, as well as humanitarian pauses in fighting.

Conditions improving in Gaza's south but not in north

Israeli officials said last week they had split the Gaza Strip in half, and the stark reality of what that means is becoming increasingly clear for Palestinians still in the north.

David Satterfield, the United States humanitarian envoy, said conditions in south and central Gaza have improved as the influx of aid trucks has increased lately to an average of about 100 a day. But there's no indication the aid is reaching the north, where much of the Israeli bombardment is focused. Israel has urged Palestinians to move to safe zones in the south, and tens of thousands are now doing so daily.

Satterfield also said Thursday the international community has provided fuel to turn back on water desalination plants in the south, and that two pipelines supplying clean drinking water to the south from Israel are operating again.

“We do see the ability in the coming days we hope to meet the minimum requirements of the population in the south,” he said.

The north, where hundreds of thousands still remain, is not getting those benefits, though Satterfield said arrangements are being made to move wounded people south.

Israeli raid in West Bank kills 13, including militants

At least 13 people were killed Thursday in an Israeli raid into the West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp, Palestinian health officials said, raising to more than 170 the number of Palestinians who have died in the enclave during clashes with Israeli forces or settlers since the war started.

The attack, which included the use of a drone strike, killed at least 10 militants, according to the Israeli military, which also reported arresting more than 20 Palestinians. Hamas said nine of its fighters had died.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said one of its paramedics was wounded when Israeli forces targeting an ambulance shot him in the back.

Militant attacks on U.S., coalition forces persist in Middle East

U.S. defense officials reported Thursday three minor injuries to American and coalition forces in Iraq and Syria after repeated aggression in the last 24 hours by Iranian-backed militant groups.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon said it struck a weapons warehouse used by militants in Syria in response to the persistent hostilities, which have included rocket and drone attacks.

Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said U.S. and coalition forces have been attacked 46 times since Oct. 17, injuring 56 personnel. All of them returned to duty.

Protesters stage sit-in at New York Times headquarters

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators on Thursday occupied The New York Times lobby, demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and accusing the media of bias in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, the Associated Press reported.

Led by a group of media workers calling themselves “Writers Bloc,” hundreds of protestors gathered outside the media company’s Manhattan headquarters. Some entered the building for a sit-in vigil that lasted more than an hour, the AP said.

Protestors read the names of thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza, starting with the youngest and including at least 36 journalists who have been confirmed dead in the war, the news outlet said.

Demonstrators scattered editions of a self-produced mock newspaper, “The New York War Crimes,” calling on the Times’ editorial board to publicly back a ceasefire.

The sit-in followed a series of actions at high-profile locations in New York intended to bring attention to the growing death toll in Gaza.

Palestinian Authority willing to help rule postwar Gaza

The Palestinian Authority is willing to rule the Gaza Strip after the war if the United States commits to a two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a top official of the Palestine Liberation Organization told the New York Times. Hussein al-Sheikh, the PLO’s secretary general, said he told Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week that the Palestinian Authority sought a comprehensive political agreement that would include the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Al-Sheikh said Palestinian leaders believe the Biden administration is capable of forcing Israel to go along.

U.S. officials say the Palestinian Authority, which rules the West Bank, must play a central role in Gaza after Hamas is destroyed. Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007.

Al-Sheikh warned that without a comprehensive initiative from the U.S. postwar, Gaza would be “a fertile soil for radicalism.”

Deal for release of some hostages could be near

Mediators were closing in on a possible deal for a three-day cease-fire in exchange for the release of about a dozen hostages held by Hamas, two Egyptian officials, a U.N. official and a Western diplomat told the Associated Press. The deal would also allow fuel to enter Gaza for the first time since the war began.

Militants are believed to be holding about 240 hostages, most of them Israelis. They were seized Oct. 7 when militants crashed across the border from Gaza and rampaged through Israeli communities, killing 1,400 and wounding thousands more. That fueled an Israeli push to crush Hamas, with the resulting attacks blamed for more than 10,800 Palestinian deaths, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Israel closes in on hospital where it says Hamas leaders are hiding

Israeli strikes pounded Gaza City on Thursday while ground forces clashed with Hamas militants near a hospital where the Israelis say Palestinian civilians are being used as ''human shields." The Israeli military, facing global backlash for its unrelenting destruction of Gaza, accused Hamas of exploiting hospitals, ambulances, clinics, mosques and schools to stash militants and weapons. Israeli forces were closing in on Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa, where tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians reportedly are sheltering alongside patients.

One militant captured by Israel reportedly said ambulances were used to transport “important people” such as Hamas commanders because “the Jews don’t attack ambulances," according to a translation by the Times of Israel.

"Most senior Hamas political and military officials are hiding in the hospitals, especially the Shifa Hospital," the Israeli military said in a statement. "This is another example of how the Hamas terrorist organization exploits civilian infrastructure and uses civilians as human shields."

Hospitals in Gaza struggle to treat, shelter refugees

Hospitals across Gaza have been grappling with low fuel and supplies as disease and the death toll rise amid the Israel-Hamas war.

The An Naser Children’s Hospital in Gaza City was hit during an airstrike on Thursday at about 5 a.m., killing three people and injuring dozens of others, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Officials said Al Shifa Hospital nearby was also near a reported bombardment. Patients who have undergone surgical procedures there are at high risk of infection, the UN said in its report, with some people’s wounds reportedly covered in white flies and larva.

On Wednesday, officials at Al Quds Hospital in Gaza City announced that its main generator shut down, and they were using a smaller one to reduce fuel consumption. The hospital was forced to close its surgical ward, oxygen generation plant, and MRI ward.

The facility said it could provide two hours of electricity each day for people sheltering there. According to the UN, the hospital has become isolated from other areas and is facing severe shortages of food, baby formula, and medicine.

According to the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, nine out of its 22 health centers are still operating in the southern region of Gaza. Officials recorded 6,530 patient visits on Wednesday.

Gaza’s only psychiatric hospital stopped operating after it was damaged in an attack on Nov. 5, the UN said in its report.

Prominent Palestinians arrested in Israel on way to protest

The arrest of six prominent Palestinian leaders on their way to an antiwar protest in Israel has prompted accusations the Israeli government is trying to quash dissent.

Among those detained were three former lawmakers: Mohammed Barakeh, Hanin Zoabi and Sami Abou Shahadeh.

The Adalah organization, which advocates for the rights of Palestinians in Israel, said Barakeh was arrested illegally after being followed by police. Barakeh explained the group he leads planned a protest with less than 50 participants and did not require a permit.

His detainment, Adalah said, exemplifies a policy “designed to muzzle any dissent and to suppress the freedom to protest of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel.”

With about 20% of Israel's population of 9.7 million, Arabs represent the country's largest minority.

Police said in a statement the protest in the northern city of Nazareth was “liable to incite and harm the public’s welfare.” Police recently banned antiwar protests.

German leader vows to combat 'shameful' surge in violent antisemitism

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz marked the 85th anniversary of Nazi-fueled Kristallnacht riots that left more than 100 Jews dead by vowing Thursday to protect German Jews from a "shameful" surge in antisemitism. Scores of synagogues were burned, hundreds of Jewish businesses were destroyed and homes were ransacked on "Crystal Night," which later became known as the "Night of Broken Glass."

Germany, like many other countries, has seen an uptick in antisemitism violence since the Israel-Hamas war broke out. Scholz attended a memorial event in Berlin's Beth Zion Synagogue, attacked last month in a failed arson attempt. Germany's "never again" promise made after World War II means the country must protect Jewish institutions and communities, he said.

"The Hitler Putsch (coup) began in Munich 100 years ago this evening," Scholz wrote on social media. "Our lesson: We must protect and defend our democracy against anyone who wants to undermine it. This applies to each and every one of us and especially these days."

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel Hamas war live updates: Daily four-hour pauses in Gaza assaults