JERUSALEM, Israel (AP) — The Board of Peace official overseeing Gaza’s postwar transition met Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a statement, in part to discuss a new disarmament deal the board reached with Hamas.
Nikolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza, held “constructive and detailed” talks with the prime minister and his team, the Board of Peace said in a statement.
“The goal is clear and is not in question: the complete decommissioning of weapons in the Strip and the transition away from rule by the gun to civilian governance,” it said.
According to two people familiar with the meeting, Mladenov also pressed Netanyahu to halt Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip. Mladenov and his team, including senior adviser Aryeh Lightstone, are pressuring Israel to stop striking Gaza as they push ahead with the agreement to decommission the weapons held by Hamas.
In a statement Monday, Hamas said that the group and the various Palestinian factions “remain committed to what was agreed regarding the implementation of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement, including all parties’ obligations.”
It added that the group is awaiting “a clear and official response” from Mladenov and the mediators regarding what was agreed upon.
President Donald Trump announced the agreement, which is part of a broader ceasefire deal reached last year, last Thursday. It called for Israel to cease its military operations and for Hamas and its allies in Gaza to halt all militant activity. The agreement also laid out in general terms what the decommissioning process would look like.
After the text of the agreement was released, Israel said it had “serious security concerns” and that it shared those with the United States.
It also ramped up its strikes in Gaza, killing 17 people overnight Saturday and into Sunday, according to local health officials. There were no recorded airstrikes in Gaza on Monday.
Israeli attacks have killed 1,250 people since the ceasefire deal was reached in October, an agreement that ended major fighting in a war that had raged for two years.
Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, mediators in the Gaza truce negotiations, denounced the ongoing Israeli strikes in a statement Monday, saying that the particular targeting of healthcare facilities, medical infrastructure and resulting civilian casualties constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law.
The mediators also called on the international community to continue to exert pressure on Israel to fulfill its end of the deal.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.
Israel's military offensive in Gaza has since killed 73,375 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Its figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants but they are considered generally reliable by the United Nations and other international organizations.
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed.
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - Palestinians try to extinguish a burning car after an Israeli military strike in Gaza City, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Canada’s second largest airline, WestJet, has agreed to a tentative agreement with flight attendants to end a strike that led to hundreds of flight cancellations and thousands of stranded passengers over the weekend.
The union representing the flight attendants said Monday that if the deal is ratified, the work that flight attendants do before flights take off will be recognized.
The union, CUPE 8125, said that flight attendants will be returning to work now that the strike is over. The tentative agreement still faces a ratification vote.
WestJet canceled 495 flights Sunday, snarling travel plans in Canada in the middle of a long holiday weekend.
A key issue in the dispute was how flight attendants should be paid for duties performed while still on the ground. The union said some of that work is unpaid, while the company said that staff was indeed compensated, citing pay through a “credit hour” system rather than an hourly rate.
“This tentative agreement represents meaningful progress,” CUPE 8125 President Alia Hussain said in a statement. “It evolves the flight credit system by recognizing more of the work cabin crew are required to perform and with general increases to compensation for that work.”
The Canadian Union of Public Employees represents the 4,400 cabin crew at the airline.
The deal comes after 250,000 travelers had their trips canceled, according to WestJet. Some struggled to find accommodations while they were stranded away from home, and others were left unable to reschedule flights.
“We are pleased to have reached a tentative agreement that reflects the hard work and professionalism of our cabin crew,” WestJet CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech said in a statement. “We know this disruption has been frustrating for our guests and WestJetters and we’re sorry for that. Our teams are working hard to restore service and get our guests on their way to their destinations as quickly as possible and we appreciate everyone’s patience as we get back to normal.”
Before the strike began, WestJet had made a proposal that included a 13% wage increase in October, increases of 2.5% each January for the next three years, retroactive wage payment to last January, additional pay for all hours worked, and upgrades to other benefits, according to WestJet. Hussain had said that although negotiators tried until the very last minute to get a fair deal, what the airline proposed didn’t go far enough.
Hussain said at a news conference in Calgary on Monday that the proposed deal addresses the issue of duties performed on the ground.
John Gradek, a faculty lecturer on aviation management at McGill University in Montreal, said that with the federal government watching and hundreds of thousands of passengers already affected by the dispute, both sides felt the urgency to get a deal done.
“There was a lot of pressure,” Gradek said. “The Sword of Damocles was hanging over them. They had to basically cut a deal, otherwise the wrath both of Canadians as well as the government would be a very difficult cross to bear.”
Whether the agreement gets ratified depends on if the union membership is satisfied with what was reached on the work flight attendants do before takeoff, he said.
He expects it will take until Wednesday for WestJet to have all its planes and flights back. The airline will then face the huge backlog of passengers affected by the dispute.
Last summer, flight attendants at Air Canada, the country’s largest carrier, stranded more than 100,000 travelers during peak travel season with a strike partly over the same issue of unpaid groundwork. That work stoppage lasted three days before the sides came to an agreement.
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AP reporters Jim Morris and Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.
WestJet flights are pictured cancelled on an information board at Vancouver International Airport in Richmond, British Columbia, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. (Ethan Cairns/The Canadian Press via AP)
A traveller looks to an information board as WestJet flights are cancelled at Vancouver International Airport in Richmond, British Columbia, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. (Ethan Cairns/The Canadian Press via AP)
A traveller tries to check in for a cancelled WestJet flight at Vancouver International Airport in Richmond, British Columbia, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. (Ethan Cairns/The Canadian Press via AP)
WestJet flight attendants strike at Vancouver International Airport in Richmond, British Columbia, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. (Ethan Cairns/The Canadian Press via AP)
