Israel will begin to implement daily four-hour military pauses in areas of northern Gaza, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
However Israel’s defence minister stressed they were only “localised and pinpoint measures” that would “not detract from the war fighting”.
President Biden said there would be two “humanitarian passages” allowing people to leave areas of fighting.
On Thursday heavy fighting was reported around two big hospitals in Gaza City.
Meanwhile, pictures once again showed thousands of Palestinians fleeing south from the city and other northern areas.
Mr Biden also said the US was trying to increase humanitarian supplies and assistance to Gaza. He said he was aiming for 150 trucks of aid per day to enter the territory.
However the UN said the amount of aid entering Gaza was only meeting “a fraction” of people’s needs and the humanitarian situation was “intolerable”. A conference in Paris earlier heard repeated appeals for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Israel has been bombarding Gaza for over a month and began a major ground offensive almost two weeks ago with the objective of destroying Hamas, which it, the US and other Western powers consider a terrorist organisation.
The war began after an unprecedented cross-border assault on southern Israel by Hamas gunmen on 7 October, in which 1,400 people were killed and 240 others taken hostage.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says 10,800 people have been killed in the territory since then, while 1.5 million have fled their homes.
Mr Biden said Israel was “fighting an enemy embedded in the civilian population, which places innocent Palestinian people at risk” but that Israel had “an obligation to distinguish between terrorists and civilians and fully comply with international law”.