The United States believes that humanitarian pauses in Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip should be longer than four hours per day and will continue to engage with Israel on the issue, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Tuesday.
"We've said before we think pauses ought to be longer. We will continue to engage in conversations about that with the government of Israel," Miller told a briefing.
Moreover, the US is calling on Hamas to allow for evacuations, the spokesman stated.
"But absent that, if they refuse to remove their command centers from hospitals, as they seem likely to do - they've been burying their command centers under hospitals for years - the step that we think would be appropriate for them to take would be to allow evacuation and yes we would very much encourage them to do," Miller stressed.
The US would support an independent third party evacuating civilians from the Gaza Strip, including from hospitals, the spokesman emphasized.
"We would support an independent third party or respected third party to conduct those evacuations. We know the government of Israel would support such a step as well," Miller said.
"The question is will Hamas allow patients to be evacuated from hospitals or will they continue to use them as human shields? We think an appropriate step would be to support those evacuations so babies and other vulnerable populations are not in harm's way," the spokesman added.
