Israel is taking one, and it’s doing so, I speculate, under pressure from the Biden administration.

Israel will start four-hour humanitarian pauses in parts of northern Gaza every day, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Thursday.

This is an extremely foolish risk to run. The only reason Israel should be taking any sort of cease fire pause, whether “humanitarian” or operational, would be to allow logistics to catch up with Israel’s advancing forces and to reestablish/reinforce coordination among the leading elements and between them and follow-on units. Furthermore, pause(s) never should be scheduled, nor should they occur with advance notice to the terrorists, as these pauses are.

On top of that, four hours is plenty of time for Hamas to recover, rest to an important degree, get its own logistics caught up, and relocate its terrorists for resumed combat along axes of its choosing and with the Israeli momentum broken by the “pause.” Four hours also is plenty of time for Hamas to relocate and hide anew the victims it has kidnapped. That’s especially the case if the four-hour periods are routinely repeated at regular and prior-notice times.