NEW YORK: Gaza “does not have another catastrophe left in it,” Nickolay Mladenov, the US-appointed high representative for Gaza told the Security Council on Wednesday.
Collapse of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas would leave “no road map to return to” and “nothing left of the ground to rebuild,” he warned
Mladenov is tasked by Washington with leading the Board of Peace, a US-led international body established to oversee governance, reconstruction and security coordination in Gaza following the October 2025 truce.
Briefing the Council on the implementation of Resolution 2803, which was adopted in November 2025 and endorsed the US peace plan for Gaza, Mladenov said a full collapse into a renewed escalation of violence “would not be a setback” but “a point of no return for everyone.”
His warning came as he set out the progress so far on a 15-point Board of Peace road map that was accepted by Hamas and other Palestinian factions on July 30, under which armed groups agreed for the first time to hand over their weapons and cede governing authority, civilian and security, to a transitional administration recognized by the UN.
Mladenov described the accord as “a historic breakthrough,” echoing language used by US President Donald Trump, but cautioned that “an agreed document on disarmament does not immediately mean a disarmed Gaza.”
He said the architecture of the road map rests on three elements: public acceptance by Hamas and other armed factions of full demilitarization and the handover of governance; agreement on the principle of “One Authority, One Law, One Weapon”; and a performance-based, rather than calendar-based, sequencing in which “a phase opens only when the previous one has been certified as completed.”
He added that the approach to implementation would be “to trust nothing and verify everything.”
Weapons are to be removed from factional control, placed in the custody of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza and rendered unusable, under international supervision, Mladenov said.
The committee, led by Palestinian technocrat Ali Shaath and constituted in January under Resolution 2803, has drawn up a six-month recovery program, created a vetting system for a future civilian police service, and prepared operational plans for security, public payments and early recovery efforts, Mladenov added.
He stressed that it “will never be a replacement” for the Palestinian Authority and is intended only to govern through the transitional period.
Regarding the humanitarian situation, Mladenov said conditions had “significantly improved” since the Famine Review Committee confirmed the presence of famine in Gaza a year ago. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification declared that the famine conditions had been offset by December 2025 and acute malnutrition mitigated across the territory, he added.
However, he cautioned that the gains, though “real,” were “very easily reversible.” In particular, he pointed to funding shortfalls flagged by OCHA, the UN’s humanitarian affairs agency, that could disrupt food and aid pipelines as early as the end of September.
Shelter shortages also remain unresolved as winter approaches, Mladenov said, as he described Israel’s current policy on shelter materials entering Gaza as “not acceptable” and urged authorities to allow better shelter equipment to enter the territory.
The peacekeeping International Stabilization Force planned for Gaza, commanded by US Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers, continues to grow as more countries contribute troops, Mladenov said, alongside the development of a deconfliction mechanism intended to resolve emerging threats before they can escalate.
He said that Israeli strikes on Gaza have continued since the acceptance of the peace road map and that Palestinian civilians were still being killed, though casualties had “fallen sharply.”
Mladenov made three requests of the Council: to reaffirm publicly that full decommissioning of factional weapons in Gaza and implementation of the Sharm Al-Sheikh Protocol for peace in the territory represent the only path to Israeli withdrawal, reconstruction and a credible political track toward Palestinian self-determination; to mobilize support for the international stabilization force and the National Committee; and to preserve the political endpoint of the transition.
He said the alternative was either reoccupation of Gaza by Israel, or a return to the prewar status quo in which Hamas was “neither disarmed nor removed from governance, but managed.” Both, he said, “are actually postponement, and both end in the same place.”
The choice is therefore: “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.”
