Nickolay Mladenov, the Gaza envoy of the US-backed Board of Peace, sought to dispel skepticism in Israel about the board’s roadmap for the disarmament of Hamas in the Strip, arguing that the plan’s full implementation is Israel’s only “guarantee” of preventing a repeat of the October 7, 2023, massacre, and that it will be based on verifiable steps, rather than trust of the terror group.

Mladenov’s interview with Channel 12 on Sunday was broadcast just a few hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he categorically rejected the 15-point plan, and, in a U-turn, reportedly halted a small IDF pullout from certain areas in southern Gaza that he had previously approved.

The White House brushed aside those comments as campaign rhetoric ahead of Israel’s October 27 election, while a key Palestinian mediator slammed them.

The roadmap’s goal is “to make sure that Gaza is never again a threat to Israeli security — that what happened before October 7 never happens again,” Mladenov told Channel12, referring to the 2023 Hamas-led onslaught in southern Israel that sparked the war.

“What happened on October 7 will never ever be allowed to happen, as long as we have a full implementation of the Board of Peace’s plan… The option that we are offering today is the only way that we move forward that guarantees that this tragedy will not occur again,” he said.

Mladenov stressed that Israel is not expected to withdraw IDF forces from their current positions until there are tangible steps reflecting Hamas’s disarmament under the roadmap, which the terror group approved last week. The plan would see Hamas hand over control to a Palestinian technocratic body operating under the Board of Peace, called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, or NCAG.

“Nobody is required to do anything – last of all Israel – before we actually have verified steps on the ground,” Mladenov said. “If there is verified decommissioning of weapons, that they are taken away from the factions, and stored, and ultimately rendered unusable, Israel then withdraws from Gaza.”

????In an exclusive interview with Channel 12 News, (Amit Segal) Board of Peace CEO Nickolay Mladenov addressed the framework for demilitarizing Gaza and the IDF’s gradual withdrawal, shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel had rejected the “15-point… pic.twitter.com/XMKyMycjbk Advertisement if(typeof rgb_remove_toi_dfp_banner != "function" || !rgb_remove_toi_dfp_banner("#Article_Incontent1")){ window.tude = window.tude || { cmd: [] }; tude.cmd.push(function() { if(navigator.userAgent.indexOf("rgbmedia-app") > -1){ tude.setDeviceType("mobile"); } tude.refreshAdsViaDivMappings([ { divId: 'Article_Incontent1', baseDivId: 'Article_Incontent1', } ]); }); } — Iris (@streetwize) August 9, 2026

????In an exclusive interview with Channel 12 News, (Amit Segal) Board of Peace CEO Nickolay Mladenov addressed the framework for demilitarizing Gaza and the IDF’s gradual withdrawal, shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel had rejected the “15-point… pic.twitter.com/XMKyMycjbk

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He specified that the plan does not require........

© The Times of Israel