Trump's Board of Peace envoy Nickolay Mladenov told the UN Security Council that continued Israeli strikes are jeopardizing the Gaza cease-fire and the U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hamas.
President Trump's top envoy for Gaza delivered a blunt message to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday: continued Israeli strikes are putting the cease-fire and the U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hamas at risk. Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace's high representative for Gaza, accused the Israeli government of jeopardizing the deal that has held the region back from all-out war since October.
Mladenov did not stop at Israel. He made clear that both sides are testing the limits of the agreement, and that the Trump administration's peace framework is the only thing keeping the process on track. The briefing was one of the sharpest public criticisms of Israel to come from a senior U.S. official since the deal was signed.
Mladenov has been the administration's point man on Gaza since the Board of Peace was established under Trump's 20-point peace framework, brokered in October 2025 after months of grinding war. His Security Council appearance on Wednesday was meant to reset expectations: the deal is not a formality, and the parties that signed it are expected to live by it.
He took particular issue with Jerusalem's policy of continued strikes inside Gaza, arguing that military action has not -- and will not -- lead to Hamas's disarmament. He also called out Israeli restrictions on shelter supplies for Palestinians living in devastated conditions across the Strip, describing the situation as unacceptable and warning that it threatens the stability of the truce.
The heart of the dispute is the U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hamas, the terror group whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel ignited the war. Mladenov told the Security Council that Hamas has accepted the disarmament plan, a significant concession, but that progress has stalled amid Israel's rejection of the proposal.
Board of Peace officials have accused both sides of violating the terms of Trump's 20-point agreement. In recent days the Board has raised alarms that Hamas is rebuilding tunnels in Gaza and has called for an end to kite attacks launched from the Strip. Israeli officials, for their part, warned over the weekend that they would escalate operations if rocket launches from Gaza did not stop within 72 hours.
The cease-fire Trump brokered has now held for months, but it has never been comfortable. Israel has continued targeting what it describes as Hamas positions, while Gaza-based militants have periodically fired rockets into Israeli territory. Israel also confirmed in recent days that it killed a senior Hamas commander in the Strip, a move that drew fresh warnings from the Board of Peace about the deal's fragility.
Each side blames the other for the breakdowns, which is exactly why the Board of Peace exists. The administration has positioned the body as the neutral enforcer of its own framework, pressing both parties to honor the commitments they signed rather than allowing the deal to collapse into renewed war.
The next several days will determine whether the cease-fire holds. With Mladenov publicly putting Israel on notice, Washington is signaling that it expects both sides to return to the table and that it will not let either party sink a deal that has already delivered months of relative calm and a path toward a broader Middle East settlement.
The administration's willingness to hold Israel accountable even while backing its right to defend itself marks a striking departure from past U.S. policy, and it reflects the Trump team's broader goal: a lasting end to the conflict, not just another pause in the fighting. Whether Jerusalem and Hamas are ready to meet that standard is the open question -- and the Board of Peace intends to keep asking it.
Trump's Board of Peace envoy Nickolay Mladenov told the UN Security Council that continued Israeli strikes are jeopardizing the Gaza cease-fire and the U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hamas.
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