After weeks of declining to back growing international calls for “humanitarian pauses” in Israeli airstrikes to allow a steady flow of aid to enter Gaza, permit American and foreign citizens to exit into Egypt and facilitate the release of hostages, the Biden administration is now fully in favor of them and is pressing Israel to agree.

The abrupt policy shift comes as the humanitarian situation inside the enclave has become more dire and much of the world has declined to follow the U.S. lead in withholding public criticism of how Israel is conducting its war against Hamas.

David Satterfield, President Biden’s special envoy to the humanitarian situation in Gaza, has been in Israel this week seeking progress on both aid and egress to Egypt. But according to U.S., United Nations, Egyptian and Israeli officials, many of whom spoke only on the condition of anonymity amid a welter of finger-pointing among those involved, no substantive progress has been made.