Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative of the Board of Peace overseeing the Gaza ceasefire, has said that the body was not seeking Hamas’ disappearance as a political movement.
Speaking at a news conference in occupied East Jerusalem on Wednesday, Mladenov said “we are not asking Hamas to disappear as a political movement.”
But he repeated demands for Hamas and other armed groups to disarm, describing the issue as “not negotiable.”
Seven months after the ceasefire took effect in October 2025, “the door to the future of Gaza is still closed,” he said.
“It is not what the Palestinians were promised and it is not what they deserve. And it is not giving Israel the security to move forward, as the Israeli people also want,” Mladenov added.
“We have a ceasefire. It is holding. It is not perfect. It is far from perfect. There are violations every day, and some of them are very serious,” he said, referring to the Israeli army’s continued violations of the truce.
Trump’s peace initiative
The Board of Peace was established in January on the initiative of US President Donald Trump as part of efforts to reach a peaceful settlement in Gaza.
Washington later said additional countries had joined the initiative.
Since the ceasefire took effect on October 10, 2025, Israeli attacks and gunfire have killed at least 856 Palestinians and injured 2,463 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The ceasefire agreement followed two years of genocide in Gaza launched by Israel in October 2023.
The Israeli relentless attacks later continued in different forms, killing more than 72,000 Palestinians, injuring over 172,000 others and devastating around 90 percent of civilian infrastructure in Gaza.
