JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Israel\u2019s prime minister said a former U.N. Middle East envoy, Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov, has been chosen to serve as the director-general for President Trump\u2019s Board of Peace aimed at overseeing the peace process in Gaza. <\/p>\n
The appointment marks an important step forward for Trump\u2019s peace plan, which has stalled since an October ceasefire ending more than two years of fighting between Israel and Hamas.<\/p>\n
Benjamin Netanyahu made the announcement after meeting Mladenov in Jerusalem. The announcement included photos of the two men and a short video, without sound, of them shaking hands.<\/p>\n
In the announcement, Netanyahu identified Mladenov as the \u201cdesignated\u201d director-general for the board, which is meant to oversee the implementation of the second and far more complicated phase of the ceasefire. There was no immediate confirmation from Washington.<\/p>\n
Trump is expected to name the members of the board later this month, with Mladenov serving as their on-the-ground representative.<\/p>\n
A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the appointment has not been officially announced, confirmed Mladenov is the Trump administration\u2019s choice to be the day-to-day administrator of the Board of Peace.<\/p>\n
Under Trump\u2019s plan, the board is supposed to supervise a new technocratic Palestinian government, the disarmament of Hamas, the deployment of an international security force, additional pullbacks of Israeli troops and reconstruction.<\/p>\n
Mladenov is a former Bulgarian defense and foreign minister who served as the U.N. envoy to Iraq before being appointed as the U.N. Middle East peace envoy from 2015 to 2020. During that time, he frequently worked to ease tensions between Israel and Hamas.<\/p>\n
The first phase of the ceasefire halted the fighting and saw an exchange of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held by Israel. The deal has largely held, though it has been marred by mutual accusations of violations. Hamas still has not returned the remains of one hostage \u2014 an Israeli policeman killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. Continued Israeli strikes in Gaza, meanwhile, have killed more than 400 Palestinians, according to local health officials.<\/p>\n
Israel says the strikes have been in response to violations of the deal, but Palestinian health officials say scores of civilians have been among the dead. <\/p>\n
Israeli gunfire blamed for death of 11-year-old<\/p>\n
Earlier Thursday, a relative of an 11-year-old girl killed in Gaza said that Israeli gunfire was responsible for her death. The family had returned to a designated safe zone following the Oct. 10 ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. <\/p>\n
After shells and shrapnel hit her home in northern Gaza\u2019s Jabalia area, Hamsa Housou was taken to Shifa Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, her uncle said. <\/p>\n
Outside the hospital mortuary, the uncle, Khamis Housou, told the Associated Press that the family had returned home on Oct. 11, a day after the ceasefire went into effect.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s military said it was not aware of any strike-related casualties in the area on Thursday. The military has previously said that any actions since the ceasefire began have been in response to violations of the agreement.<\/p>\n
Housou, who said his niece had dreams of becoming a doctor, recounted how, early on Thursday, he heard screams as Israeli troops combed the area where shells and shrapnel hit. He ran from his apartment toward the home where Hamsa lived and found her lying on the floor.<\/p>\n
He carried the girl to the nearest clinic, only to find the ambulance there had a flat tire. They waited about 15 minutes, he said, before taking her to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say that there is a ceasefire and that the war on Gaza has stopped. Is this only through the media, while every day there are explosions and fire belts?\u201d he asked. \u201cShooting does not stop. Where is the ceasefire?\u201d<\/p>\n
Housou said that Falluja, the neighborhood in Jabalia where the family lives, has been subjected to daily shooting by Israeli troops despite being on the western side of the yellow ceasefire line.<\/p>\n
\u2018Hamas refuses to disarm\u2019<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Egyptian and European Union leaders meeting in Cairo urged the deployment of an international stabilization force in the Gaza Strip to oversee the October ceasefire.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation is extremely severe. Still, Hamas refuses to disarm. It blocks progress to the next state of the peace plan at the same time Israel is also restricting the international NGOs that are putting humanitarian aid access at serious risk,\u201d said EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no justification for the humanitarian situation in Gaza to have deteriorated to the current level,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The phased ceasefire agreement remains in its initial stage as efforts continue to recover the remains of the final hostage in Gaza. Israel\u2019s Hostages and Missing Families Forum said Wednesday that it had been notified that teams had recommenced searching for Ran Gvili. The 24-year-old police officer was abducted on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed about 1,200, mostly civilians, in the attack that triggered the war. <\/p>\n
Israeli soldier sentenced<\/p>\n
An Israeli soldier seen in a widely circulated social media video firing live ammunition from his post into the Gaza Strip on New Year\u2019s Day will serve 20 days in prison, Israel\u2019s military said Thursday. Military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said on X that the unnamed soldier \u201cacted contrary to procedures by firing in an unprofessional manner and not complying with orders.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said the soldier was firing toward an open area and not at civilians or homes.<\/p>\n
Rights groups have long criticized the military\u2019s investigations as lacking independence and say wrongdoing is rarely punished. The sentence marked a rare instance of an Israeli soldier facing consequences for conduct in Gaza. <\/p>\n
While the military routinely says it investigates alleged violations, most cases don\u2019t result in disciplinary action or penalties.<\/p>\n
U.N. aid group to open office in Turkey<\/p>\n
The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees warned Thursday that Israeli pressure on the organization risks creating a \u201chuge vacuum\u201d in services.<\/p>\n
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, told reporters in Ankara that no other body has the capacity or \u201ccommunity trust\u201d to provide health, education and social services there.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the agency cannot or has to stop to operate in Gaza or in the West Bank, this will create a huge vacuum,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lazzarini was in Turkey for talks with officials on improving humanitarian access in Gaza.<\/p>\n
In June, Turkey and UNRWA signed an agreement for the agency to open an office in Ankara. Lazzarini said the office, which is expected to open \u201cwithin weeks,\u201d would initially serve as a liaison and advocacy hub, but could later take on additional functions.<\/p>\n
Shurafa, Metz and Fraser write for the Associated Press. Metz reported from Jerusalem and Fraser from Ankara, Turkey. Bassem Mroue and Kareem Chehayeb contributed to this report from Beirut, Fatma Khaled from Cairo and Maryclaire Dale from Philadelphia. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Israel\u2019s prime minister said a former U.N. Middle East envoy, Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov, has been chosen to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[40919,3962,50,51,42,46,111366,2899,124397,43,31135,124395,124396,1009,23114,40,38,41,39,1582,124398],"class_list":["post-227743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-ankara","tag-day","tag-gaza","tag-hamas","tag-headlines","tag-israel","tag-israeli-troop","tag-military","tag-mladenov","tag-news","tag-oct","tag-october-ceasefire","tag-peace-board","tag-president-trump","tag-thursday","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-turkey","tag-violation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}