Seven months after a US-brokered ceasefire came into force in Gaza, the top diplomat overseeing the truce has given a blunt assessment: the agreement is holding, but only barely. Nickolay Mladenov, the senior representative for Gaza on the International Board of Peace established by US President Donald Trump, told foreign reporters in Jerusalem on Wednesday that the ceasefire was "far from perfect," with daily violations, some of them "very serious." His remarks came as Israeli forces continue to control more than half of the Gaza Strip, over 850 Palestinians have been killed since the truce took effect on 7 October 2025, and the phased peace plan remains frozen at its first stage.
The central deadlock, Mladenov said, is Hamas's refusal to disarm. Trump's 20-point ceasefire plan envisages Hamas surrendering its weapons and destroying its tunnel network, after which Israeli forces would withdraw, a new technocratic Palestinian government would take over, an international security force would deploy, and large-scale reconstruction would begin. But Hamas has linked any disarmament to Israeli troop pullbacks, while Israel has struck police stations and officers it views as instruments of Hamas rule. "You cannot build a future with armed groups running the streets, hiding in tunnels and stockpiling weapons," Mladenov said. Disarmament, he insisted, is "not negotiable." Mladenov said his office has presented Hamas with a detailed 15-point implementation roadmap — discussed in multiple rounds of talks in Cairo — but did not clarify where those negotiations currently stand.
Despite the hard line on weapons, Mladenov left open the possibility of a political future for Hamas. "We are not asking Hamas to disappear as a political movement," he said. "A political party that disavows armed activity can compete in national Palestinian elections." Hamas, for its part, rejected the framing, with spokesperson Hazem Qassem calling on Mladenov to "identify the party violating the ceasefire" and urging pressure on Israel to fulfil obligations from the first phase before discussions on the second can begin. According to conflict monitoring group ACLED, Israeli attacks in Gaza increased by 35 percent in April compared to March, a surge observers link to Israel redirecting firepower following a separate ceasefire with Iran last month.
The humanitarian situation in the territory, home to roughly two million people, remains dire. Nearly the entire population has been displaced, with many living in tent camps along the coast where food, water and healthcare are scarce and disease is spreading. Aid organisations report that Israel has not permitted the agreed volume of humanitarian assistance to enter the enclave, and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says ten of its facilities are now off-limits. Meanwhile, an Israeli rights group, Gisha, reported this week that the military has extended its effective control beyond the "yellow line" set in the ceasefire agreement, now encompassing coordination over aid movements across an additional 11 percent of the territory. Mladenov warned that if the status quo solidifies, it risks creating a permanent physical division of Gaza — an outcome he said would serve neither Palestinian interests nor Israeli security. Rebuilding the devastated enclave, he added, would take "a generation."