Nickolay Mladenov Says Gaza Ceasefire Stalled Over Hamas Disarmament Deadlock

Nickolay Mladenov, the top diplomat overseeing the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Gaza, told foreign reporters in Jerusalem that the truce was stalled because the deadlock over disarming Hamas has paralyzed reconstruction of the war-battered territory.

Mladenov said Hamas’ obligation to give up its arsenal is “not negotiable,” and he warned that without disarmament Gaza faced a future of prolonged “misery.”

Al Jazeera

He described the ceasefire’s status as “rocky,” saying his office is addressing violations by both sides on a daily basis while Israeli military control of more than half of Gaza has continued.

Mladenov also said the ceasefire gave Israeli military control of half of Gaza east of a “yellow line,” hemming Palestinians into tent camps along the beach where rights groups say food, water, and healthcare are in short supply.

In the same Jerusalem meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mladenov said the Board of Peace translated Trump’s original plan into a 15-point “detailed implementation roadmap” discussed with Hamas representatives in Cairo many times.

In Gaza, Shuruq, the Gaza multimedia officer for the NGO Save the Children, said there is “real fear in recent weeks that a famine could potentially return — like the one Israel caused around the capital last summer — and those bombings,” precisely as families try to “reconstruct something as close as possible to a normal life.”

She described how families with more means and four walls try to save food, while the vast majority still lack the means to buy it or store it, living in tents where spring rains can spoil food or rats can eat it.

Al-Ain Al-Akhbariyah

El País reported that after seven months of ceasefire and with negotiations at a dangerous deadlock, the buzz about a new Israeli ground offensive is growing louder, with Israel continuing daily bombing and hindering reconstruction.

El País also said Hamas handed over in January the last of the around 250 hostages it had taken in its massive October 2023 attack, but the ceasefire’s implementation is “virtually stalled.”

In the same report, Mladenov told the foreign press in a Jerusalem hotel that Hamas disarmament “is not negotiable” and presented it as the gateway to “reconstruction, the Israeli withdrawal, and the political horizon.”

Lebanese Culture Minister Ghassan Salamé said the Israeli ground offensive is “credible” and that he fears a “double escalation” in the conflict, citing information about “a concentration of Israeli troops along the border” and “trucks heading toward the border filled with equipment.”

Salamé told France Inter that Israeli ministers have threatened to destroy the country’s civilian facilities and that some have said Beirut will soon resemble Khan Younis, while he said he hopes these are “hollow threats.”

He also described a proposed security zone with a depth of 5 to 10 km, saying it would be “a bare zone” where not only Hezbollah fighters could not return, but where the civilian population could not return either.

El País framed Gaza’s stalled ceasefire as conditioning the next steps on Hamas disarmament, quoting Mladenov’s approach that there is “no third option. There is a miserable status quo. And then there is the forward option provided by the plan.”

In Lebanon, Le Parisien reported that Emmanuel Macron calls for direct talks between Tel Aviv and Beirut and proposed hosting them in Paris, as thousands of Arabic leaflets urged Lebanese to “disarm Hezbollah, Iran's shield.”