'Point of no return' if Israel-Hamas truce fails: US envoy to Gaza board

The National Times - 'Point of no return' if Israel-Hamas truce fails: US envoy to Gaza board

'Point of no return' if Israel-Hamas truce fails: US envoy to Gaza board / Photo: © AFP/File

The high representative for Gaza in US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace warned Wednesday of a "point of no return" if the Israel-Hamas ceasefire breaks down.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing a tough re-election fight, earlier this month publicly rejected the latest part of a US plan aimed at ending the devastating Gaza war.

A resumption of fighting in Gaza would mean "no roadmap to return to, there will be no administration to deploy, and there will be nothing left on the ground to rebuild. That would not be a setback. It would be a point of no return for everyone," Nickolay Mladenov told the United Nations Security Council.

A roadmap agreed by Hamas on July 30 said that the decommissioning of weapons would be supervised by the International Stabilization Force, the nascent unit that aims to deploy to Gaza if the situation calms. It is led by US Major General Jasper Jeffers.

Hamas had pledged to hand over its weapons to a new Palestinian governing body, an arrangement that brought skepticism from Netanyahu but which Trump hailed as a breakthrough.

Mladenov said "the second risk (to the ceasefire) runs in the opposite direction. Hamas has committed to cease all military activities. That commitment is still to be met in full."

"Every weapon carried, every tunnel still worked on, and every convoy still obstructed sets the process back and hands an argument to those who want to resume war," he added.

L.A.Adams--TNT

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