JAKARTA - The former U.N. envoy for the Middle East has been chosen to head U.S. President Donald Trump's Presidential Peace Council to oversee a ceasefire in Gaza, Israel's prime minister said on Thursday.
The appointment of Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov marks a significant step forward for Trump's Middle East peace plan, which has been slow to move since last October's ceasefire that ended more than two years of Israeli military campaigns of genocide against the Palestinian territory.
Netanyahu announced this after meeting Mladenov in west Jerusalem, calling him the "appointed" director general of the council, which is intended to oversee the implementation of the second and much more complicated phase of the ceasefire, Anadolu reported from the Associated Press (9/1).
A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity as the appointment had not been officially announced, confirmed Mladenov was the Trump administration's choice to become the council's daily administrator in the field.
President Trump previously said he would lead the council. Other appointments are expected to be made next week.
Under Trump's plan, the council was supposed to oversee a new Palestinian government, the disarmament of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, the deployment of international security forces, the withdrawal of additional Israeli troops, and reconstruction. The US has reported little progress in all of these areas so far.
Mladenov is a former Bulgarian defense and foreign minister who served as the UN envoy to Iraq before being appointed as the UN Middle East peace envoy from 2015-2020.
During that time, he had good working relations with Israel and often worked to ease tensions between Israel and Hamas.
The first phase of the ceasefire halted the war and resulted in the exchange of hostages held by Hamas for hundreds of Palestinians held by Israel.
The deal has been tarnished by Israeli violations, as the ongoing offensive in Gaza has killed more than 400 Palestinians, according to local health officials.
Yesterday, Egyptian and European Union leaders meeting in Cairo urged the deployment of an international stabilization force in the Gaza Strip to oversee an October ceasefire.
"The situation is very serious," said EU Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas.
Israel also restricts international NGOs from providing aid to the territory.
"There is no excuse for the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza to the current level," Kallas said.
Meanwhile, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned the same day that Israeli pressure on the organization risked creating a "huge vacuum" in services.
The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini told reporters in Ankara that no other agency has the capacity or "public trust" to provide health, education and social services there.
"If the agency cannot or must stop operating in Gaza or in the West Bank, this will create a huge vacuum," he said.
Lazzarini is in Turkey to hold talks with officials on improving humanitarian access in Gaza.
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