By Emma Farge
May 21 (Reuters) – The Board of Peace’s lead envoy for Gaza warned the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that the enclave’s current division could become permanent, leaving more than 2 million people crowded into less than half its territory, unless a ceasefire takes hold.
U.S. President Donald Trump set up the Board of Peace to oversee his ambitious plan to end Israel’s two-year war in Gaza and rebuild the shattered territory.
But its implementation has stalled, with Hamas refusing to lay down arms and Israel maintaining troops in a large swathe of Gaza representing around 60% of the 365-square-kilometre (140-square-mile) enclave. Even before the war, the territory was one of the most densely populated places in the world.
“The risk is that the deteriorating status quo becomes permanent – a divided Gaza, Hamas holding military and administrative control over 2 million people across less than half the territory,” Nickolay Mladenov, Trump’s Board of Peace envoy for Gaza, told the Security Council in New York.
He said this would lead to another generation of Gazans living in tents and preclude Israeli security and any viable path to Palestinian statehood. “This is a version of the future that Israelis, Palestinians and the region should all fear and all mobilise to avoid,” he said.
His report to the New York body said that Hamas’ refusal to hand over weapons and relinquish control was the “principal obstacle” to implementation. He also recognised continuing Israeli ceasefire violations and killings while acknowledging a funding gap.
“Reconstruction financing will not follow where weapons have not been laid down. No investment, no movement, no horizon,” Mladenov told the body, which has recognised the board although not all major powers have joined.
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said Mladenov’s remarks were an “attempt to create justifications for the occupation’s escalation against the people of the Gaza Strip and for tightening the siege imposed on them”.
Aid groups say humanitarian supplies into Gaza remain constrained despite guarantees of increased assistance under the ceasefire.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington and Nidal Al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Editing by William Maclean)
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