麻豆APP

13 July 2026

Remarks by H.E. Nickolay Mladenov,
High Representative for Gaza
Palestine Donor Group — Ministerial Meeting

Brussels, 13 July 2026

[as delivered]

Commissioner ?uica, High Representative Kallas, Prime Minister Mustafa, colleagues,

Thank you for convening this meeting, and for the generous financial commitments placed on the table today by the European Commission and Member States.

Dear colleagues around this table, we share common goals: a Gaza free from the rule of the gun and terror; a better life for its people; and a negotiated resolution to the Palestinian–Israeli conflict.

To reach these goals we need collective action, we need clarity of purpose and we certainly need discipline. The path to something transformative—escaping the repeated pattern of managing an unmanageable conflict—is laid out in the U.S.-led 20-point Comprehensive Plan for Gaza and UN Security Council Resolution 2803, both endorsed by the European Union and international partners.

That is the future for Gaza, and those are the plans that the Board of Peace, my Office and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza are advancing. We are advancing them diplomatically through close engagement with the guarantors—Egypt, Türkiye, Qatar and the United States; and I want to particularly thank them for their relentless efforts in the mediating process. We are advancing them on the ground through the ceasefire, scaled-up humanitarian assistance and the deployment of the International Stabilization Force.

I’m happy to announce that tomorrow, Aryeh and I, will be in Morocco to sign Morocco’s contribution to the International Stabilization Force, and soon we hope to see them on the ground undertaking their tasks.

We are advancing these plans through resourcing and supporting the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza’s readiness to assume responsibility and create the conditions for unprecedented reconstruction financing in the future.

While the situation is clearly urgent, there are no shortcuts…

The conditions for a new trajectory must be set step by step by all parties in reciprocity and overseen by the Board of Peace in line with the Security Council mandate. This includes the vision for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, with a reformed Palestinian Authority assuming responsibilities in a redeveloped Gaza.

The EU’s continued support, partnership, and guidance to the PA’s reform agenda remains very vital for the future as well.

Commissioner, let me be precise about where we stand today.

The ceasefire is holding indeed, although it is holding imperfectly. Violations and restrictions continue to this day. Every hostage however has come home. While much more assistance is needed and early recovery is still in the future, aid trucks enter consistently and at levels well above those before the ceasefire. Food assistance has stabilized the population to a certain extent, and some progress has been achieved made in addressing the sanitation crisis that is devastating the population.

Today, however, there is no recovery in Gaza. There is only survival.

The path out of the current situation runs through the implementation of the Comprehensive Plan and it must be implemented in full and by all parties. This includes the full implementation of the commitments under the Sharm el-Sheikh Protocol, the decommissioning of weapons held by Hamas and other Palestinian factions, and the end of Hamas’s control over the Gaza Strip. This is not a question of sequencing. It is a fundamental principle of the Comprehensive Plan and Resolution 2803.

It sits alongside the withdrawal of Israel’s military forces, the development of and the deployment of the International Stabilization Force, and the transitional governance that the NCAG of Gaza can implement.

The fifteen-point Roadmap that we are currently negotiating requires that it be finalized quickly and be fully implemented. It has been built together with Egypt, with Türkiye, Qatar, and the United States. It remains on the table. It is the architecture of reciprocal steps that will be verified by an implementation verification committee composed of the mediators before each step of the roadmap is taken. Weapons will be handed over to the Palestinian National Committee—not to Israel—and decommissioned and placed permanently beyond use. The roadmap offers amnesty. It offers reintegration and safe passage in exchange. It also delivers a phased Israeli withdrawal and large-scale reconstruction financing. Hamas has yet to accept this Roadmap, and every week without agreement is paid for by the population of Gaza not by those refusing to agree to it, but the guarantors remain fully engaged and negotiations with both sides is progressing and the International Stabilization Force continues to be built up.

Meanwhile, the National Committee is not waiting as well. And let there be no confusion about the place of the national committee for the administration in Gaza. It sits at the apex of the transitional governance structure, a Palestinian body that my office exists only to support, to advise, and to clear obstacles for, not to direct.

Under Dr. Ali Shaath, the Committee has completed most of the technical foundations of the transition: The architecture of the civilian administration, the vetting standards for senior officials, the personnel procedures for all. It has prepared arrangements to restore basic services to Gaza’s own teachers, doctors, engineers, and municipal staff who will be treated fairly, legally, and with dignity, and I’m particularly grateful to the World Bank for its invaluable assistance in building the fiduciary and accountability architecture that donors in this room require. And I welcome the European Union’s readiness to stand behind the Committee and support it as well.

The people of Gaza cannot wait and should not wait, but we should also not be deluded by false choices of pragmatic defeatism. Returning to a business-as-usual approach in Gaza, of piecemeal recovery efforts, where recovery is hindered by access restrictions, undermined by diversion, and carried out under the threat of the gun will only entrench the misery of the current status quo. If we want recovery across Gaza to become reconstruction at scale, Hamas must lay down its weapons and Israeli forces must withdraw. There is no other scenario.

Waiting and seeing is not a strategy even. Moving forward with implementation of the Comprehensive Plan and Resolution 2803 is now an absolute necessity.

The enabling conditions must be actively created and supported. Key among them is ready, resourced, and backed national committee that can credibly oversee recovery and reconstruction. Without this credible partner on the ground, there will be more lost time and wasted resources.

A managed transition in Gaza requires recognition and respect for a simple principle: one authority, one law, one weapon. This is not an external demand. It is not a demand of the Board of Peace. It is a Palestinian principle, stated by the Palestinian leaders themselves.

No reconstruction plan will work, however well financed, survives parallel armed structures. Gaza has taught us that lesson before many, many times. We should not need to learn it once again.

Allow me to thank the commissioner for her cooperation and dialogue on all of these issues. What the Commission is proposing today, pooling and accelerating existing donor commitments to address solid waste, water and sanitation, rubble removal, and agricultural livelihood response to a real and immediate emergency. I welcome it, Commissioner, in my office, and our entire team stands ready to support.

Thank you very much for this meeting today once again, and we look forward to continuing our cooperation.

Thank you.

Related documents:

• Board of Peace High Representative for Gaza briefs the Security Council – Question of Palestine
• Implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2803 (2025): Report of the Board of Peace through the Office of the High Representative for Gaza (S/2026/418) – Question of Palestine
• Security Council Resolution on President Donald J. Trump’s Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict [S/RES/2803 (2025)] – Question of Palestine