The senior official overseeing the US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza has called on the UN Security Council to use “every means at its disposal” to press Hamas to disarm, warning that further violence could undo the agreement. Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative of the Board of Peace, said Israel must also honour its commitments under the October ceasefire, citing Palestinian deaths and restrictions on humanitarian aid.
“The choice before Hamas and Israel is either a deteriorating status quo or a new beginning for Palestinians now waiting in desperate conditions,” Mladenov told the Security Council. “There is no third option. There never was, and the people of Gaza should not be made to wait while some pretend that there is.” He was expanding on the Board of Peace’s first report, which identified Hamas’s refusal to decommission weapons and relinquish control as the main obstacle to implementing the ceasefire.
Hamas criticised the report, arguing it ignored Israel’s failure to comply with the truce. The militant group, which led the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, has linked any demilitarisation to Israeli troop withdrawals. Israel’s military now controls about 60% of Gaza.
Mladenov, a veteran Bulgarian diplomat, warned that without progress, Gaza would remain divided, with Hamas controlling 2 million Palestinians trapped in rubble and reliant on aid. “This is a version of the future that Israelis, Palestinians and the region should all fear,” he said. He urged the Security Council to back the roadmap for peace, which includes gradual, time-bound decommissioning of weapons to a transitional administration, not to Israel.
“I ask the council to use every means at its disposal to urge Hamas to accept the roadmap without further delay, and Israel to uphold its obligations under the ceasefire,” Mladenov added. “Diplomacy must continue, cannot be used as an excuse for delay while 2 million people wait in desperate conditions.”
