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Israel to begin daily pauses in Gaza fighting - Here's why

Israel to begin daily pauses in Gaza fighting - Here's why Photo: The fighting will cease from 10:00 to 20:00 local time (Getty Images)

Israel has announced daily pauses in military operations in several areas of Gaza to create corridors for delivering humanitarian aid to the enclave, Reuters reports.

According to a statement from the IDF, combat operations will be halted from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. local time in areas where the Israeli Defense Forces are not currently conducting active operations. In particular, this includes Al-Mawasi, the central part of Deir al-Balah, and the northern part of Gaza City.

The military also said that beginning Sunday, certain safe routes will operate from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. for convoys delivering food and medicine.

UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said that personnel would ramp up efforts to deliver food to the starving during these pauses in designated areas.

"Our teams on the ground ... will do all we can to reach as many starving people as we can in this window," Fletcher wrote on X.

On July 27, Egyptian state television channel Al Qahera News reported that humanitarian aid had begun arriving in Gaza via Egypt. Just hours earlier, Israel had begun airdropping food supplies.

Philippe Lazzarini, Head of UNRWA, the UN agency providing aid to Palestinian refugees, called the humanitarian crisis "man-made" and criticized the airdrops, describing them as expensive and ineffective.

According to statements from the Israeli military, the new measures are being coordinated with the UN and other international humanitarian organizations and are intended to increase the volume of aid deliveries.

Israel also denies accusations of using starvation as a tool of pressure, calling the claims "false and baseless," and emphasizes that pressure on Hamas (recognized as a terrorist organization by the US and EU) will continue until hostages abducted on October 7, 2023, are released.

In March, Israel fully blocked humanitarian aid access to Gaza, and in May, it allowed partial resumption of deliveries by handing over control of food distribution to a US-Israeli humanitarian fund operating in Gaza.

However, tragic incidents have occurred regularly around the distribution centers set up by the fund, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians, according to the UN.

Some witnesses, including former guards at those centers, place most of the blame for the deaths on Israeli forces. Israel, in turn, blames Hamas for the suffering of civilians.

Ceasefire between Israel and Hamas

Earlier this week, there was a possibility that Israel and Hamas, with US mediation, would reach a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip.

However, the US broke off the talks and recalled its negotiating team from Qatar. Trump's Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, explained that Hamas's latest response "shows a lack of willingness" to reach a truce.