Jerusalem —
A prolonged standoff in Gaza risks entrenching permanent divisions in the region, a senior international official overseeing the ceasefire has warned, as Israel tightens its grip on the enclave.
Nikolai Mladenov, the person in charge of implementing the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire agreement, said failure to move forward with the deal would lead to a “dangerous status quo” that would leave 2 million Palestinians in Gaza with no viable future, while increasing Israel’s long-term presence in more than half of the shattered territory.
“The status quo should not be an option for anyone,” Mladenov, who heads the Gaza Peace Committee (BoP), said Wednesday in Jerusalem at his first press conference since taking office in January. “The longer we do not work on the future, the more stable the status quo will become and the more difficult it will be to break out of it,” Mladenov said after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This warning highlights the worsening situation in Gaza. As the world’s attention focuses on the Iran war, Israel expands its control over the enclave and kills hundreds more Palestinians while Hamas refuses to disarm as required by the cease-fire deal. Israeli officials have warned that Hamas is aggressively rebuilding its military and civilian capabilities and tightening its grip on Gaza.
Under the October 2025 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, Israeli forces have withdrawn to a demarcation line known as the “Yellow Line” that encircles about 53% of the Gaza Strip. But the line is moving towards the Mediterranean Sea, forcing Gaza’s population onto a shrinking landmass. Last month, the Israeli military provided a new map with an “orange line” marking Israel’s control of about 64% of the territory, according to international aid groups.
CNN has reached out to the Israeli military for comment.
Mr Mladenov declined to discuss the new border, instead warning of the possibility that the yellow border could solidify into “a permanent separation of Gaza, either as a fence or a wall.”
“And at that point, it doesn’t really matter where the yellow line is, but Gaza is gone,” he added, warning that this would also not meet Israel’s security demands because “Hamas will again be armed and threatening.”
Seven months after the ceasefire took effect, Mladenov acknowledged that it was “far from perfect” but noted that it had brought “relative stability.”
Mladenov said the BoP and international mediators – the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey – continue to monitor ceasefire violations and work to reduce them. “There is a lot going on on the ground. Air strikes and other military actions on the ground are violations of the ceasefire,” he said.
Since the ceasefire took effect, Israel has carried out near-daily airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 850 people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Mladenov said this actually means that “civilians are still being killed, families are still living in fear, and for Palestinians in Gaza, the war still does not feel completely over.”
Mladenov also hailed the U.S.-brokered 20-point peace plan as a breakthrough that “opens the door to the future,” pointing to what it enables: a massive reconstruction plan, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, the establishment of a new Palestinian governing body, job creation, and a political vision for self-determination and statehood. He said the plan was later expanded into a 50-point implementation document drawn up by the BoP and mediators and discussed with both Israel and Hamas.
He stressed that the plan is based on reciprocity, not trust, and that independent verification mechanisms have been established to monitor compliance. “One step causes another step. If you miss a step, the next step will not happen.”
But the most central and controversial element of the plan, the disarmament of Hamas, remains a major hurdle, slowing down the rest of the deal, Mladenov said. “The plan is clear: Hamas must withdraw from governing Gaza, its weapons must be disposed of, and Gaza must be deradicalized,” he said. He made Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza conditional on other elements of the plan, primarily the disarmament of Hamas and the achievement of civilian rule in Gaza.
Mladenov said he has met twice with Hamas representatives to move forward with disarmament. “There cannot be armed groups or militias with their own military command and control systems,” he said. The ceasefire plan includes provisions for a voluntary purchase of weapons in the Gaza Strip, conditional amnesty for those who surrender their weapons, and safe passage abroad for those unwilling to accept the framework.
“We are calling on the political leaders of those currently governing Gaza to step down,” Mladenov said. “The key principles underlying this framework are one authority, one law, one weapon. You cannot achieve reconstruction by massing militias from corner to corner.”
He appeared to place central responsibility on Hamas, accusing it of “consolidating its control over the population, taxing people on the streets, and preventing workers and contractors from building shelters for communities and displaced persons.”
“For what purpose?” he asked, “to squeeze better terms out of the negotiations?”
