The Board of Peace’s high consultant for Gaza instructed the Security Council on Wednesday that he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed at their last assembly on a mechanism through which his authorities’s remaining questions would be settled and that committees had been established for that goal.
Mladenov said that course of had not stalled but warned that dangers remained, including the continued killing of Palestinian civilians in Israeli strikes.
“A ceasefire in fact under which civilians are still buried is not yet one that the people of Gaza can really feel. Every use of force that does not answer an immediate threat, and every incident that the deconfliction mechanism was not asked to resolve, costs this process something very hard to buy back,” he added.
Mladenov acknowledged that Hamas too had yet to meet totally its dedication to stop all navy actions.
“Every weapon carried, every tunnel still worked and every convoy still obstructed sets the process back and hands an argument to those who want to resume war,” he said.
He repeated that under the new roadmap, Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza “follows verified decommissioning” of Hamas weapons handed over to the Palestinian technocratic committee that will govern Gaza under the Board of Peace’s supervision.
“It is sequenced and reciprocal,” he said.
That is a key distinction from feedback made by President Trump’s envoy, Jared Kushner, after assembly Israel’s prime minister two weeks in the past.
He said Israeli withdrawal would be mentioned only once the demilitarisation of Gaza was “done” – showing to change the plan in line with Israel’s calls for.
Israel’s consultant instructed the Security Council assembly that it was dedicated to last October’s US-brokered plan for ending the Gaza conflict, but she insisted it could not succeed while Hamas still had weapons, tunnels and other navy infrastructure.
“Disarmament must come first,” she said.
The Palestinian consultant said Israel was killing Palestinian civilians with impunity in Gaza and called on the worldwide group to defend them without delay.
Mladenov warned that if the ceasefire was allowed to collapse, “there will be no roadmap to return to, there will be no administration to deploy, and there will be nothing left of the ground to rebuild”.
“That would not be a setback. It would be a point of no return for everyone.”
The conflict was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
Israel responded by launching a navy marketing campaign in Gaza, during which more than 73,430 people have been killed, according to the territory’s health ministry.
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