Israel has agreed to implement daily four-hour humanitarian pauses in its assault against Hamas terrorists in northern Gaza in order to allow ordinary Palestinians to flee the combat zone, the White House said Thursday.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on a conference call that the Jewish state will announce the safe windows at least three hours in advance.

“We’ve been told by the Israelis that there will be no military operations in these areas over the duration of the pause, and that this process is starting today,” Kirby said. 

“We believe these pauses are a step in the right direction, particularly to help ensure that civilians have an opportunity to reach safer areas away from the act of fighting.” 

The White House has repeatedly insisted that the pauses are different from the cease-fire called for by pro-Hamas activists around the world since the Israel Defense Forces began retaliating after the deadly Oct. 7 attack that killed more than 1,400 people, including at least 33 Americans.

Kirby added that the ultimate goal of the pauses would be to find a way to free “all 239 hostages” who were taken by Hamas. That number is believed to include fewer than 10 Americans, though the Biden administration has refused to give a precise figure.

President Biden told reporters on the South Lawn that he had asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “a pause longer than three days” when the two leaders spoke by phone on Monday.

When asked if he was frustrated with Netanyahu’s resistance to the idea, Biden admitted that “it’s taken a little longer than I hoped.”

The commander-in-chief added that there was still “no possibility” of a general cease-fire in the month-long conflict.

Netanyahu’s office reiterated Thursday that no cease-fire would be enacted without the release of the hostages.

Along with the four-hour pauses, Israel’s military agreed to formalize two humanitarian routes in northern Gaza, each of which can funnel thousands of people to safe areas in the south.

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The Israeli prime minister’s officer said these passages have already been used for mass evacuations during the IDF’s recent advances. 

“Israel is allowing safe passage through humanitarian corridors from the northern Gaza Strip to the south, which 50,000 Gazans utilized just yesterday. We once again call on the civilian population of Gaza to evacuate to the south,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.  

In order to ensure that civilians will follow the calls to flee, US officials have called for a steady flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza in response to complaints from nonprofit groups about the lack of food and other basic supplies in the Palestinian enclave.  

“We need to see more,” said Kirby, who noted that 106 aid trucks had entered Gaza on Wednesday. “We need to see more soon, with an aim for no less than 150 trucks per day, continuously, every day.”