Board of Peace envoy meets with Netanyahu on Gaza disarmament deal, urges halt to strikes
The Board of Peace official overseeing Gaza’s postwar transition has met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
JERUSALEM, Israel -- The Board of Peace official overseeing Gaza’s postwar transition met Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a statement, in part to discuss a new disarmament deal the board reached with Hamas.
Nikolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza, held “constructive and detailed” talks with the prime minister and his team, the Board of Peace said in a statement.
“The goal is clear and is not in question: the complete decommissioning of weapons in the Strip and the transition away from rule by the gun to civilian governance,” it said.
According to two people familiar with the meeting, Mladenov also pressed Netanyahu to halt Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip. Mladenov and his team, including senior adviser Aryeh Lightstone, are pressuring Israel to stop striking Gaza as they push ahead with the agreement to decommission the weapons held by Hamas.
In a statement Monday, Hamas said that the group and the various Palestinian factions “remain committed to what was agreed regarding the implementation of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement, including all parties’ obligations.”
It added that the group is awaiting “a clear and official response” from Mladenov and the mediators regarding what was agreed upon.
President Donald Trump announced the agreement, which is part of a broader ceasefire deal reached last year, last Thursday. It called for Israel to cease its military operations and for Hamas and its allies in Gaza to halt all militant activity. The agreement also laid out in general terms what the decommissioning process would look like.
After the text of the agreement was released, Israel said it had “serious security concerns” and that it shared those with the United States.
It also ramped up its strikes in Gaza, killing 17 people overnight Saturday and into Sunday, according to local health officials. There were no recorded airstrikes in Gaza on Monday.
Israeli attacks have killed 1,250 people since the ceasefire deal was reached in October, an agreement that ended major fighting in a war that had raged for two years.
Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, mediators in the Gaza truce negotiations, denounced the ongoing Israeli strikes in a statement Monday, saying that the particular targeting of healthcare facilities, medical infrastructure and resulting civilian casualties constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law.
The mediators also called on the international community to continue to exert pressure on Israel to fulfill its end of the deal.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.
Israel's military offensive in Gaza has since killed 73,375 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Its figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants but they are considered generally reliable by the United Nations and other international organizations.
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed.
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