Trump's Gaza envoy urges Hamas to disarm 'without delay'

NEW YORK

The Gaza envoy for U.S. President Donald Trump's new "Board of Peace" initiative urged U.N. Security Council members to pressure the militant group Hamas to disarm, as part of a ceasefire to end over two years of war.

"I ask the council members to use all means at their disposal to urge Hamas and all Palestinian factions to accept this framework without delay," said Nickolay Mladenov, a veteran Bulgarian diplomat named the board's high representative for Gaza.

"Every hour, every day wasted, carries a human cost and further erodes the process for credible and lasting peace," he told a Security Council meeting on the Palestinian conflict.

Trump's administration, along with Qatar and Egypt, negotiated a ceasefire in October to halt two years of devastating war in Gaza.

In January, Washington said it was moving into the second phase of the peace plan that calls for the disarmament of Hamas, whose unprecedented Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel triggered the massive offensive.

It also calls for the gradual retreat of Israeli forces and the deployment of an international stabilizing force.

But despite the reduced violence, Israeli strikes have at times continued, resulting in hundreds of deaths since the ceasefire, and Hamas has refused to disarm under conditions it says are imposed by Israel.

"The laying down of arms by militant groups would represent a decisive break from cycles of violence that have defined life in Gaza for decades," Mladenov said.

Trump's Board of Peace has promised a wave of reconstruction and investment aid for Gaza in case of a lasting truce.

The war in Gaza was triggered by a Hamas attack on Israel in 2023 that killed 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Since then at least 72,000 people have died in Gaza in an Israeli military offensive, according to the territory's health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

Also at the meeting, the U.N. Resident Coordinator Office's deputy special coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories, Ramiz Alakbarov, warned of a "heightened level of violence in the West Bank."

Violence between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank risks "further displacing Palestinian communities," he said.