Envoy Tapped for Trump’s Gaza Board Meets Senior Palestinian Official in West Bank
Nickolay Mladenov, United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal Representative of the Secretary-General, briefs the UN Security Council during a council meeting on the situation in the Middle East at UN headquarters in New York City, New York, US, March 24, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar
The former UN envoy expected to help lead Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace for Gaza met a top Palestinian Authority official on Friday as the US president pushes ahead with his plan for the enclave’s future.
Trump is expected to announce the composition of the board this month, possibly as early as next week, a US official said. Portrayed as part of a transitional government, the board is an important component of Trump’s phased plan to halt the war between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
The first phase of Trump’s plan, which included a ceasefire and hostage release deal, has been shaken by issues including Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, a refusal by Hamas to disarm, and Israeli delays in reopening Gaza‘s Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
Although the two sides accuse each other of breaching the deal, Trump says he wants to move on to the second phase, a progression that would entail the establishment of the Board of Peace and a yet-to-be-agreed deployment of peacekeeping forces.
MLADENOV HAS TALKS IN RAMALLAH
Nickolay Mladenov, the former UN Middle East envoy who is expected to represent the board on the ground, met senior Palestinian Authority (PA) official Hussein al-Sheikh in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday, the Palestinian leader said on X.
The two men discussed “the situation in the Gaza Strip, ways to move to the second phase, and mechanisms for implementing [Trump’s] plan,” Sheikh said.
Mladenov was not expected to meet PA President Mahmoud Abbas, a source familiar with the matter said. Under Trump’s plan, the PA would eventually take control of Gaza from the Board of Peace.
Israel has rejected any involvement of Hamas, which ran Gaza before the war, but has also opposed rule by the PA, the body set up under the Oslo interim peace accords three decades ago that has limited governing power in the West Bank.
On Thursday, Mladenov met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some of his top advisers in Jerusalem, Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. Netanyahu reiterated Israel’s position that Hamas must be disarmed and Gaza should be demilitarized, in line with Trump’s plan, the statement said.
Netanyahu’s office described Mladenov as “set to become the Director of the Gaza Strip Board of Peace.”
Mladenov, a former Bulgarian politician, served as the UN’s Jerusalem-based Middle East envoy from 2015 to 2020. The board, expected to also comprise officials from US allies in Europe and the Middle East, would oversee a committee of Palestinian technocrats.
Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said the group expected the next phase of Trump’s plan to include “the immediate formation of a Palestinian body to manage” Gaza in its entirety and “the complete withdrawal of Hamas from the governmental scene.”
Trump’s deal for Gaza, struck in October, left Israel in control of more than half of the territory. Nearly all of Gaza‘s more than 2 million people now live in makeshift homes or damaged buildings in areas where Israeli forces have withdrawn and Hamas has reasserted control.