The most consequential thing to happen to Gaza this month happened in Egypt, at a negotiating table where the question of whether the territory is ever disarmed — the question Israel spent the war answering with the IDF — now belongs to a Trump-chaired board, a Bulgarian envoy, and the governments of Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey. Israel won the war. The settlement of that war is moving to rooms where Israel has no seat.

Since the fighting wound down under the October ceasefire, the “disarmament” of Gaza has been run out of Cairo, by people who do not answer to Jerusalem. The body in charge is the Board of Peace, the Gaza oversight board President Trump created and the UN Security Council blessed in Resolution 2803 last November. Trump chairs it. Its daily work belongs to Nickolay Mladenov, a former UN peace envoy now carrying the title High Representative for Gaza, who runs the negotiations alongside Egyptian, Qatari, and Turkish mediators. The direct line to Hamas runs through Egypt’s intelligence chief, Hassan Rashad, who has hosted the faction delegations in Cairo and has met Netanyahu directly. Israel is one party in a process it does not run.

What sits on that table is the exact thing Israel said it would........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)