The White House’s announcement that Israel has agreed to a four-hour pause in fighting to allow civilians to flee south falls woefully short of the needs in Gaza, Abdel Hamid Siyam, a Middle East expert at Rutgers University, told Al Jazeera.
“Pauses are not a solution,” he said, saying what is needed is a “ceasefire so that humanitarian aid can come in uninterrupted, that foreigners can leave the country, and maybe negotiations cane take place”.
“If this is only a pause to allow people to move from the north to south, it did not work in the past, it will not work in the future,” he said. “In four hours, people cannot come. They don’t have cars, they don’t have fuel. It’s not going to work.”
“There is mounting pressure on Israel now to open up for a real ceasefire, a real truce for a day or two or three. I think that is coming in the next few days,” he said.
Source: AlJazeera
