Smoke rises behind Gaza's Al Shifa hospital. In the courtyard and corridors are thousands of displaced people.

At the gates: body bags.

Israeli forces fought Hamas militants among ruined buildings in the north of the Gaza Strip on Thursday (November 9), inching their way closer to Al Shifa and another main hospital in Gaza City.

In the emergency room, this man says he and others tried to head south but when they reached the road a tank fired at them.

Others fled along a frontline route.

The White House said on Thursday Israel has agreed to pause operations in northern Gaza for four hours a day from Thursday, the first sign of respite in Gaza's war.

Allowing people to flee along two humanitarian corridors.

Some of those escaping on Thursday said they feared another "Nakba", the "catastrophe" of their mass dispossession after Israel was founded in 1948.

KHALED ABU ISSA: "They are driving people to schools, and scaring them so they would leave. What we see today is a plan for a second exodus."

UM HASSAN: "What do things look like behind us? Death and destruction. Death and destruction."

U.S. President Joe Biden says he's seeking a longer halt of three days to help secure the release of hostages held by Hamas.

Israel unleashed its assault on Gaza in response to a cross-border raid by Hamas gunmen, who killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, as well as kidnapping about 240.

But the plight of Palestinians trapped in the besieged enclave has stoked global calls for a ceasefire, which is rejected by Israel and its main ally, the United States.

Palestinian officials said more than 10,800 Gaza residents had been killed as of Thursday, about 40% of them children.

At a humanitarian conference in Paris on Thursday, officials from about 80 countries and organizations were trying to coordinate a response.

Jan Egeland heads the Norwegian Refugee Council.

"We cannot wait a minute more for a humanitarian ceasefire across Gaza for all of the civilian population there. And we cannot wait a minute more for a lifting of the siege, which is collective punishment of a million children."