The fragile ceasefire in Gaza faces mounting pressure, with a senior US-backed envoy issuing a stark warning this week that its collapse would mark "a point of no return" for the region, even as Israeli airstrikes continue to kill Palestinian civilians and diplomatic divisions deepen over the path to lasting peace.
Nickolay Mladenov, the High Representative for Gaza on the Board of Peace — the US-backed international body overseeing the ceasefire framework — told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that the process was under serious strain. He criticised both Israel's continued use of force and Hamas's failure to fully honour its own commitments. "A ceasefire in fact under which civilians are still buried is not yet one that the people of Gaza can really feel," he said, warning that every strike not justified by an immediate threat "costs this process something very hard to buy back." He also cautioned that Hamas carrying weapons, maintaining tunnels and obstructing aid convoys "hands an argument to those who want to resume war." At least 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire was announced, according to UN figures, including 300 children, with Israeli airstrikes resuming on 12 August after a one-week pause.
A central dispute concerns the sequence of steps toward peace. The 15-point roadmap — announced by the Board of Peace last month and accepted by Hamas — envisions phased Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza following verified handover of Hamas weapons to a Palestinian technocratic committee. Mladenov described this as "sequenced and reciprocal." Israel, however, insists that full disarmament must come before any military withdrawal. The US ambassador, Michael Waltz, defended the overall plan and noted that Hamas had "twice committed to disarm," while Trump envoy Jared Kushner had previously signalled support for Israel's interpretation — that withdrawal would only be discussed once demilitarisation was complete. France pushed back sharply, with its ambassador calling for an Israeli military withdrawal and arguing that restoring basic living conditions and Palestinian governance in Gaza should not be held hostage to the completion of disarmament. France also strongly condemned statements by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who had reportedly called for dozens of Palestinians to be killed each night.
Broader regional concerns were also raised at the Security Council session. Pakistan's UN ambassador questioned how the ceasefire could be described as holding when strikes and civilian deaths continued, and warned that Israel's E1 settlement project — which would place 1,200 housing units in an area east of Jerusalem — could sever the occupied West Bank and destroy prospects for a viable Palestinian state. The Palestinian observer described the project as crossing "the Rubicon" on annexation. Qatar, speaking for the Arab Group, stressed that a just peace could not be achieved without ending Israel's occupation, while condemning what it called ongoing Israeli violations across Palestinian territory.
The human cost of the conflict remains devastating. In Gaza, children fly kites between drone strikes, young artists process trauma through painting, and surfers seek fleeting escape on the Mediterranean coast. A mass funeral was recently held for 112 members of a single extended family — 40 of them children — whose bodies had been buried in rubble for nearly three years. Mladenov made clear that the stakes of diplomatic failure could not be higher: "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."