There are ‘steps in right direction’ in Gaza as IDF shows restraint — foreign official

A foreign official involved in the attempt to implement the Board of Peace’s disarmament roadmap for Gaza says that there has been some progress in recent days as the IDF has shown restraint.

“After a challenging start, we’ve seen some steps in the right direction,” says the official.

“We are seeing restraint now and a pullback in the military operations that is important to getting the sequencing rolling,” the official says of the IDF.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Tuesday that Israel has not agreed to the Hamas disarmament proposal, which the terror group accepted last week. While pushing back against the plan’s call to stop IDF operations in Gaza, Netanyahu did not deny reports that Israel has agreed to tighten its rules of engagement, requiring the approval of the IDF chief of staff before any strike can go ahead.

“This calm and stability is important and offers a platform to start accelerating implementation,” says the official. “But it is of course a delicate situation in an environment with no trust. That is why the roadmap is so important as it builds the verification, the phasing, the sequencing to set expectations and incentivize compliance.”

The official adds, “We are currently working on setting up the precise mechanisms of the International Verification Committee, which will play a critical role in this process – not just in getting through the phase one commitments, but then moving on to the next stages and the bigger challenges with decommissioning [weapons] and a full transition of power, and the various steps those will trigger.”