Official leading Trump's Gaza ceasefire effort criticizes Israel for its
attacks
[August 28, 2026]
By EDITH M. LEDERER
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The official in charge of President Donald Trump's
ceasefire plan for Gaza criticized Israel on Wednesday for its attacks
on the war-battered Palestinian territory and warned that the
alternative to the U.S. proposal is the next war.
Nikolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace high representative, insisted to
the U.N. Security Council that Trump's 20-point plan has not stalled and
“has moved from the negotiating table to the engineering table.”
The militant group Hamas has agreed to the proposal’s key provision to
disarm and turn Gaza over to civilian rule, he said. But Israel’s
ongoing strikes since last October’s ceasefire are still killing
Palestinians — though much fewer — and Gazans can’t feel that the
conflict is ending, he said.
“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. “It will not. It only
delays the demilitarization that would happen” and obstructs the
transfer to a civilian government.
A recent U.S. deal with Hamas to disarm was seen as a potential
breakthrough to end the war, which was sparked by the militant group’s
deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israel. But Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his forces won’t withdraw from their
current lines in Gaza until Hamas has handed over all its weapons.
Mladenov said that at a meeting he took part in last week with Netanyahu
and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, “we went through his
government’s concerns one by one and narrowed the areas that still
require technical work.”
Israel’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Noa Furman, reiterated to the Security
Council her country’s commitment to Trump’s plan, but stressed that it
can’t succeed while Hamas remains armed. She said Israel is working
closely with the U.S. to achieve Hamas’ disarmament.
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Palestinians walk past a food-aid warehouse damaged in an Israeli
airstrike that targeted a nearby house in Deir al-Balah, central
Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz, said concerns about
Trump's plan are being addressed and Hamas' disarmament will be
judged on its actions.
Mladenov warned of the distance between the roadmap and what’s
happening on the ground, and said if war resumes, there won’t be a
roadmap to return to or anything left on the ground to rebuild.
“That would not be a setback,” he said. “It would be a point of no
return for everyone.”
Mladenov stressed the need for political will to overcome the
differences and said there is a choice to be made: “A Gaza disarmed,
rebuilt and reconnected to the world. Or a Gaza rearmed, divided and
in rubble, with a radicalized generation raised inside it and the
next war already on the horizon."
As for the Palestinians, Mladenov said, the Trump plan includes a
“credible pathway to a political horizon" and a two-state solution
to the decades-old conflict. Netanyahu vehemently opposes a
Palestinian state.
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