The White House says Israel has agreed to four-hour daily humanitarian pauses in its assault on Hamas in northern Gaza to get hostages out.

National Security Spokesman John Kirby confirmed the windows will be announced three hours in advance and will begin today.

The move was announced as President Joe Biden said he had bleak hopes for a long-term ceasefire in Gaza and Israeli troops engaged in brutal street warfare with Hamas.

Fighting has intensified in the 34 days since Hamas’ brutal October 7 attack, and tensions in the region have sparked attacks on American forces by Iranian-backed proxies.

Biden also warned he was prepared to order more airstrikes in the Middle East in retaliation for attacks on U.S. troops.

The president said he dispatched two F-15s to attack Iranian Revolutionary Guard weapons depots in Syria because ‘they struck us’.

When asked about the ‘chances’ of a Gaza ceasefire outside the White House before a trip to Illinois, he said: ‘None. No possibility.’

The White House says Israel has agreed to four-hour daily humanitarian pauses in its assault on Hamas in northern Gaza to get hostages out

He added that the U.S. is still ‘optimistic’ all the hostages taken during the October 7 terrorist attack will be released.

‘We’re not going to stop until we get them out,’ he said. 

The Biden administration says it has secured a second pathway for civilians to flee fighting. 

Biden had asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to institute the daily pauses during a Monday call.

Before boarding Air Force One for a flight to Illinois he hinted he was frustrated with Netanyahu because the pause had ‘taken a little longer than I hoped’.  

Kirby said Israel had also agreed to open a second corridor for civilians to flee northern Gaza – along the territory´s coastal road – joining the first that has been in place along its main north-south highway.

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The move was announced as President Joe Biden said he had bleak hopes for a long-term ceasefire in Gaza

 Injured Palestinians, including children, are taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital as Israeli attacks continue 

Israeli soldiers walk through rubble, amid the ongoing ground invasion against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip, November 8, 2023

On Thursday, Israeli military officials claimed their troops toppled one of the Palestinian militants’ ‘strongholds’ after a gruelling 10-hour-long battle.

Hamas fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and assault rifles fired on Israeli soldiers backed by armoured vehicles in the ruins of the besieged territory’s north.

Broken palm trees, mangled road signs and twisted lampposts marked the remains of what was once north Gaza’s main road, as Israeli tanks and APCs trundled south to enter Gaza City.

Meanwhile, one IDF unit claimed they discovered a Hamas weapons-making facility next to a child’s bedroom in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of the city.

Images shared on the IDF’s official social media accounts showed heavily armed Israeli troops standing in a room with several small beds and pink wallpaper covered in debris. Drone components and missiles were seen in an adjacent room as the soldiers combed the site.

Israeli soldiers inspect the entrance to what they say is a tunnel used by militants of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas

Lt. Col. Ido stands in a damaged bedroom, which is located, as he claims, above a workshop that was used for weapon production inside a residential building amid the ongoing ground invasion against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip

Israeli flags can now be seen being flown in northern Gaza, where there is little sign of human presence amid the destruction, with hundreds of thousands of residents having fled the dire humanitarian situation.

The utter devastation is the result of over a month of war sparked by the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel when gunmen from the Islamist group 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, in the past 32 days of fighting.

The Israeli military said its forces secured a Hamas ‘military stronghold’ in western Jabalia area in the past day, adding the troops had ‘finished securing the compound after 10 hours of combat’.