The current events between Israel and Palestine would scar the region for years to come, Nickolay Mladenov, former Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process at the United Nations, said in an interview with BNR.

The war has three fronts: one is the Hamas-Israel opposition, the second is the Jewish-Arab clashes, and the third is the propaganda war in media and in the region as a whole, the expert says and adds:

"On all three fronts, the situation looks extremely alarming. The long-term danger stemming from everything we see at the moment is people on both sides of the border becoming more radicalised, which will complicate matters even more in the future," Mladenov forecasts. For nearly 6 years he had been a mediator between Israelis and Palestinians – a period, during which escalation of tensions was successfully prevented.

"It is a fact that our main job in the last two years of my work as a special coordinator was preventing things that we see happening at the moment. There were probably three times when we successfully managed to stop escalation. It is a fact that what is happening now was absolutely preventable. Many mistakes have been made by both sides. The escalation was left to develop both in Jerusalem and on the border with Gaza, as well as in the public space for weeks before these intense military actions started taking place," Mladenov said, expressing hope for finding a way for mediation and tension reduction.

He singled out several reasons for the current situation:

"These are the completely frozen peace process and stripping people of all hope that the conflict could be resolved through peace and negotiations in a way that is mutually beneficial. Unfortunately, this is the reality in which the conflict has existed for many years. People on both sides have been losing hope and becoming more radicalised in one way or another. An additional complicating factor is that Hamas is an organization with complex military infrastructure in Gaza and has been controlling the situation there for more than 10 years. A complicating fact is that the Palestinians have failed to hold elections for more than a decade. They were supposed to start the election campaign in early May after many negotiations and compromises, but unfortunately Mahmoud Abbas chose to cancel them and this led to additional tensions.”

"A devastating war would make Gaza uncontrollable and this would no longer be just a problem of Israel, but a problem of Egypt, Europe and the whole world," Nickolay Mladenov warned, adding that although being the only solution at the moment, conflict management could not last forever.

"A solution to the conflict that will allow Israel, the Jewish state, to separate from the Palestinians and the future Palestinian state, so they can live in peace within the framework of security, economic, and other agreements, must be found. There is a possibility for this to happen. I think everyone realizes that this is the only way forward, but there is no political will for that."

Interview by: Deyan Yotov

Editor: Elena Karkalanova

English: Alexander Markov