US says Israel set to begin humanitarian pauses' to let Palestinians evacuate south

Thousands of Palestinians continued to evacuate south from northern Gaza yesterday as the White House announced that Israel would begin to implement four-hour "humanitarian pauses" in parts of the area to allow people to flee.

- Emine Sinmaz

The US's national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said the pauses would allow people to leave along two humanitarian corridors. Israel said it had allowed movement along the Salah al-Din road - the main highway that runs along the Gaza Strip - for the fifth consecutive day.

Images showed many people leaving on foot with their belongings tied to their backs, with some pushing wheelchairs and prams. "We saw decomposed bodies, people from civilian cars, civilians like us, not military cars or resistance men," Khaled Abu Issa told Reuters after crossing into the south with his family at Wadi Gaza. 

Israeli forces continued to fight Hamas militants in the north of the Gaza Strip on Thursday and inched closer to two big hospitals, as the plight of civilians in the besieged Palestinian territory worsened.

A surgeon at al-Shifa Hospital, the territory's largest, warned that he could hear "gun battles" from the hospital yesterday.

The Israeli Defence Forces announced that its troops have been operating in the centre of Gaza City, where, it said, Hamas's military quarter is located, near al-Shifa hospital.