Board of Peace envoy says office will help Gaza technocrats assert control of Strip

WASHINGTON — Board of Peace High Representative Nickolay Mladenov says his new office will assist the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), “hopefully removing the roadblocks that they will be facing in taking over civilian and administrative control of the Gaza Strip.”

Mladenov says his office will coordinate with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, showing a slide that confirms the creation of a coordination committee between the Board of Peace and the PA, as first reported by The Times of Israel on Wednesday.

Mladenov reveals that the NCAG has posted a job posting for police on its website for Palestinians to apply to serve in the Gazan police, adding that 2,000 people have already submitted applications in the first few hours.

The police will be trained in Egypt, Mladenov says.

He says a framework for a weapons decommissioning program has been approved by the mediators.

“We now need to move forward on communicating it and negotiating the details of the implementation plan with the factions on the ground,” Mladenov says.

“If I can ask one thing of all of us, it is to make sure that we have one message: there is no other option except the full demilitarization and decommissioning of all weapons in Gaza for reconstruction to begin and for people to have a new way of life going forward,” he says.