Trump's Own Gaza Envoy Says Israeli Strikes Are Undermining the Ceasefire He's Trying to Sell

Nikolay Mladenov isn't supposed to be picking fights with Israel. He's the high representative of President Trump's Board of Peace, tasked with getting the 20-point Gaza plan across the finish line. On Wednesday, he told the UN Security Council that Israel's continued strikes in Gaza are getting in the way of that job.

"After three years of war and 20 years of military operations, I ask, will another strike on a munitions depot stop Hamas from rearming or tightening its grip on Gaza?" Mladenov said, according to the Associated Press. "It will not. It only delays the demilitarization that would happen."

According to Ynet News, Mladenov put it even more bluntly: "These strikes do not change the status quo that produced 7 October 2023. They preserve it."

Mladenov says Hamas has agreed to the plan's core provision, disarming and handing Gaza to civilian rule. He says the plan has "moved from the negotiating table to the engineering table," meaning it's no longer theoretical, it's being built. But Israeli strikes are still killing Palestinians, according to the AP, just fewer than during the war itself. Mladenov's argument: if Gazans don't feel the war is actually over, the whole disarmament process stalls.

Israel isn't budging. Deputy UN Ambassador Noa Furman told the Security Council that Israel remains committed to Trump's plan, but stressed it can't work while Hamas keeps its weapons, per the AP. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has held this line since the October ceasefire: no Israeli withdrawal from current lines until Hamas hands over everything.

Kushner's ultimatum to Hamas

While Mladenov was leaning on Israel, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner was in Cairo leaning on Hamas. Kushner met with the group directly, alongside the new technocratic Palestinian National Committee, and told Fox News' Trey Yingst that Hamas reaffirmed its commitment to disarm under a 15-point roadmap his team has been negotiating for four months.

"If they don't follow through now on their commitment, everyone will see that they're not genuine about peace, and then Israel will have a lot more support from the U.S. and others to go and finish the job in the appropriate way," Kushner said.

Kushner was careful to note he doesn't trust Hamas on its word alone. "They said all the right things, but obviously, it's very, very hard to trust, you know, a terrorist organization that committed these terrible atrocities," he told Fox News. "But we had a very cordial meeting, and they said all the right things, and so we're going to give them a chance to perform."

A near-collapse over the withdrawal text

The disagreement between Washington and Jerusalem got serious enough to nearly blow up the deal earlier this month. According to Breitbart, the Board of Peace released a text calling for Israel to begin a phased Gaza withdrawal, which triggered objections from Netanyahu's security cabinet. Two ministers, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, pushed to hold a new cabinet vote to scrap the deal entirely, arguing the published text didn't match what Netanyahu's government had agreed to.

The Board of Peace walked it back. In a statement on X cited by Breitbart, the board said Israel's withdrawal beyond the so-called Yellow Line, the boundary marking territory Hamas still controls, would happen "only once decommissioning is complete, as Hamas committed to the mediators." Netanyahu spokesman Doron Spielman said the published version "does not reflect Israel's positions."

The Epoch Times reported that a nearly four-hour meeting between Kushner and Netanyahu on Aug. 17 produced an agreement: U.S. Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers, commander of the International Stabilization Force in Gaza, would oversee Hamas's disarmament, and Israeli troops would not withdraw until that disarmament is fully verified. Netanyahu reportedly rejected a separate Kushner request that Israel halt targeted killings in the territory.

The strongest case for Israel's position

Israel's argument isn't unreasonable on its face. Netanyahu's office has said Hamas's actions since the ceasefire show it's "preparing for further October 7-style massacres," and that "the indispensable first step toward any lasting arrangement is the genuine, verifiable and irreversible demilitarisation of Hamas." After an attack that killed roughly 1,200 people, a government insisting on proof before pulling back troops is a defensible position.

The counterargument, which Mladenov and other Board of Peace officials are making, is that continued strikes without a clear military payoff are actively working against the disarmament they're supposed to force. Board officials told Ynet that recent IDF operations "generated a lot of media attention, but they are tactical operations with no meaningful security value that cause significant strategic damage."

Both claims can be true. Hamas may not be trustworthy, and Israeli strikes may still be undermining a fragile process. Neither the AP, Ynet, nor Fox News' sourcing resolves which effect dominates, and no neutral verification exists for how much of Gaza's weaponry Hamas has actually surrendered.

What's unresolved

Mladenov's warning to the Security Council was stark: if the roadmap collapses, "there won't be a roadmap to return to or anything left on the ground to rebuild." U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said Hamas's disarmament will be judged on its actions, not promises, per the AP.

No independent inspection regime has publicly verified Hamas disarmament progress. The Board of Peace's two new working groups, one on demilitarization, one on sanitation and water, are set up but their timelines for reporting results haven't been made public. Whether Israel scales back strikes and whether Hamas actually turns over weapons on Jeffers's watch will determine whether Trump's plan reaches the reconstruction phase or collapses into what Mladenov called "the next war."