Israel-Gaza war live updates: Netanyahu says he doesn’t ‘seek to occupy Gaza’; Israel opens evacuation corridor

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel doesn’t “seek to occupy Gaza,” a slight shift in tone after his previous comments that Israel would be responsible for the Palestinian enclave’s security “for an indefinite period” raised red flags in the Biden administration. “We don’t seek to conquer Gaza … and we don’t seek to govern Gaza,” he said in an interview with Fox News late Thursday, adding that the goal “in the foreseeable future” was to eliminate Hamas militant threats. Israel announced a six-hour evacuation corridor on Gaza’s main highway on Friday, after agreeing to “tactical, localized pauses” for aid deliveries and fleeing civilians. However, this fell short of the three-day pause President Biden said he had asked for, while aid groups described the pauses as insufficient for Palestinians growing desperate with little food or water, and nowhere safe to flee.