Cairo negotiations over Gaza: humanitarian blackmail and the struggle over disarmament
Children sift through rubbish at the Nuseirat camp for Palestinian refugees in central Gaza on 7 May 2026
Wissam Abu Shamala reports in The Palestine Chronicle on 6 May 2026:
The Gaza file has once again moved to the forefront following the announcement of a fragile ceasefire on the Iranian and Lebanese fronts. A series of meetings in Cairo brought together the High Representative of the so-called Board of Peace in Gaza, Nikolay Mladenov, and Palestinian representatives. During those meetings, proposals and counterproposals were exchanged between the Palestinian side and the mediators, while Israel largely confined itself to relaying its conditions through Mladenov.
Mladenov’s initial proposal reflected what Palestinian negotiators viewed as an almost complete adoption of the Israeli position, as Israel continued to pursue what it still imagines could be an “absolute victory” on at least one front. Yet the broader state of military and political deadlock, coupled with Israel’s inability to achieve its stated objectives, pushed the government to reopen the Gaza file and revive threats of renewed war under the pretext that the Palestinian side refused to disarm.
From the outset, Mladenov centered the negotiations on the issue of weapons and disarmament, treating all other matters as secondary and conditional upon that file. The approach caused the talks to collapse in their first phase after the Palestinian delegation rejected what it described as a reversed negotiating framework, one that prioritized disarmament while ignoring Israel’s failure to fulfill most of the commitments stipulated in the first phase of the Trump plan.
During one of the meetings, US adviser Aryeh Lightstone joined the discussions with the Palestinian delegation. Echoing the rhetoric of US President Donald Trump, Lightstone reportedly warned that “hell” would return to Gaza if the delegation rejected the proposal within 48 hours.
The Palestinian delegation responded days later with its own paper, reflecting what it described as a Palestinian national consensus based on reciprocal commitments and the principle that negotiations could not move to the second phase of the agreement before the first phase was fully implemented. That response prompted Mladenov to submit revised proposals concerning ceasefire arrangements.