Board of Peace envoy meets with Netanyahu on Gaza disarmament deal, urges halt to strikes

JERUSALEM, Israel (AP) — The Board of Peace official overseeing Gaza's postwar transition met Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a statement, in part to discuss a new disarmament deal the board reached with Hamas.

Nikolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza, held "constructive and detailed" talks with the prime minister and his team, the Board of Peace said in a statement.

"The goal is clear and is not in question: the complete decommissioning of weapons in the Strip and the transition away from rule by the gun to civilian governance," it said.

According to two people familiar with the meeting, Mladenov also pressed Netanyahu to halt Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip. Mladenov and his team, including senior adviser Aryeh Lightstone, are pressuring Israel to stop striking Gaza as they push ahead with the agreement to decommission the weapons held by Hamas.

President Donald Trump announced the agreement, which is part of a broader ceasefire deal reached last year, late Thursday. It called for Israel to cease its military operations and for Hamas and its allies in Gaza to halt all militant activity. The agreement also laid out in general terms what the decommission process would look like.

After the text of the agreement was released, Israel said it had "serious security concerns" and that it shared those with the United States.

It also ramped up its strikes in Gaza, killing 17 people overnight Saturday and into Sunday, according to local health officials. There were no recorded airstrikes in Gaza on Monday.

Israeli attacks have killed 1,250 people since the ceasefire deal was reached in October, an agreement that ended major fighting in a war that had raged for two years.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.

Israel's military offensive in Gaza has since killed 73,375 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Its figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants but they are considered generally reliable by the United Nations and other international organizations.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed.