Diplomat overseeing Gaza ceasefire says violations threaten transitional governance

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The top diplomat overseeing the U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal in Gaza said Friday that continued violations of the agreement pose major obstacles to the Palestinian committee expected to oversee postwar governance and reconstruction.

Nickolay Mladenov, who serves as high representative for Gaza for the U.S.-established Board of Peace, spoke during a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference. The international board, established by U.S. President Donald Trump, is set to meet next week.

The transitional committee, made up of Palestinian administrators, has met in Egypt but has not yet entered Gaza. Mladenov said it won’t be able to do its work unless Hamas, the militant group that has governed Gaza since 2007, hands over institutional control. He also called for more aid and improved security.

The agreement calls for Hamas to lay down its arms and for an international security force to be deployed, but there has been no visible progress on either. Israel has continued to carry out strikes in response to what it says are violations of the truce. Palestinian militants have also attacked Israeli forces.

“We need to make sure that what is happening now with the violations of the ceasefire stops,” Mladenov said. “We’re only embarrassing the committee and ultimately making it ineffective.”

Mladenov didn’t lay out a specific timeline but said “all of this needs to move very fast.”

Palestinian Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, speaking at the same panel, said the timeline is key, adding that Gaza must not be severed from the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Authority wants to govern both territories ahead of eventual statehood, something to which Israel is adamantly opposed.

The Oct. 10 U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal attempted to halt a more than two-year war between Israel and Hamas.

While the heaviest fighting has subsided, the ceasefire has seen almost daily Israeli fire. Israeli forces have carried out repeated airstrikes and frequently fire on Palestinians near military- held zones. There have been 591 Palestinians killed, according to Gaza health officials.

The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. But it does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.

Militants have carried out shooting attacks on troops, and Israel says its strikes are in response to that and other violations. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Mladenov, a Bulgarian diplomat, as the director-general of the board mean to oversee the implementation of the second and far more complicated phase of the ceasefire.

The bodies of 53 unidentified Palestinians, along with 86 unidentified human remains, were laid to rest on Friday at a mass burial in a cemetery in central Gaza’s Deir Al-Balah.

Earlier this month, Israel transferred the bodies of 54 Palestinians and 66 boxes containing human remains, all unidentified, to Gaza via the Red Cross. Only one body was identified by a family, while the others were buried on Friday.

Israel gave no identification for the bodies and doesn’t allow DNA testing material into Gaza.

“A period of time is allotted for families to identify these bodies and remains. Unfortunately, none of these remains or organs were identified,” Ziyad Obeid, director of the cemeteries department at the Endowments Ministry, said from the burial site. ___

Hazboun contributed from Jerusalem. Associated Press reporter Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed.