The announcement of US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to oversee Gaza’s post-war governance and reconstruction marks a consequential moment for Gaza and the wider Middle East.
Yet, the initiative remains enveloped in ambiguity, its contours ill defined and its ambitions only partially disclosed. As a result, it has elicited a notably tepid international response.
Fundamental questions regarding its structure, authority, and scope remain unanswered, and without meaningful clarification, the initiative struggles to command durable international support.
The governance architecture commonly referred to as Trump’s “Gaza Peace Council”, tied to the broader 20-point peace plan, is best understood not as a single entity but as a multi-tiered framework.
Much of the prevailing confusion stems from inconsistent nomenclature in official statements and media reporting. At the apex of this structure sits what is formally designated the Board of Peace, sometimes informally described as the Peace Council.
This body constitutes the political and strategic core of the initiative. It is chaired by Trump and includes senior US figures such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, alongside select international figures, most notably former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other invited world leaders.
The board is tasked with setting the overall vision for post-war Gaza, defining strategic priorities, coordinating high-level international support, conferring political legitimacy on the framework, and acting as the principal oversight body under the plan endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2803.
The board’s charter grants Trump sweeping and highly centralised authority. He chairs the organisation, approves agendas, appoints and removes member states, creates or dissolves subsidiary bodies, vetoes decisions, and even selects his own successor.
Such a concentration of power is virtually without precedent in modern multilateral governance.
It is also this body that Trump has invited approximately 60 countries to join, offering three-year terms or a so-called permanent seat in exchange for an extraordinary financial contribution reportedly set at $1 billion.
This requirement has prompted immediate comparisons to a pay-to-play alternative to the United Nations and has raised profound questions about legality and political intent. Critics have already begun referring to the initiative as a “Trump United Nations”, a label that captures both its ambition and the unease it has generated.
Beneath the Board of Peace sits a smaller and more operational body often described as the Executive Board, and sometimes imprecisely labelled an advisory council.
This Executive Board is designed to translate the board’s strategic directives into concrete implementation. Its membership reportedly includes US appointees, regional diplomats such as Turkish and Qatari envoys, representatives of allied nations, and international figures, including the UN’s Sigrid Kaag.
Far from ceremonial, this body is meant to play a hands-on role, coordinating between the international community, the Board of Peace, and the Palestinian technocratic administration on the ground, and guiding the operational aspects of stabilising post-war Gaza.
In practice, the Executive Board functions as the connective tissue between high-level political decision-making and on-the-ground administration. It is responsible for translating strategy into implementation, coordinating donor efforts, liaising with regional stakeholders, and ensuring operational coherence among international agencies involved in Gaza’s reconstruction.
At the ground level lies the Palestinian technocratic administration, formally established as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza. Composed of Palestinian technocrats, this body is responsible for day-to-day governance: restoring basic services, managing civil administration, overseeing reconstruction projects, and stabilising public institutions during the transitional period.
Crucially, it is neither sovereign nor autonomous. Its authority flows downwards from the Board of Peace and is mediated through the Executive Board. The structure is therefore strictly hierarchical: the board sets strategy and mobilises legitimacy and funding; the Executive Board coordinates and implements; and the Palestinian committee governs daily life under international supervision.
The absence of Palestinian representation at the highest decision-making levels is not a minor oversight. It is a structural exclusion, relegating Palestinians to the role of subjects of governance rather than partners in reconstruction.
International reactions reflect this unease. European states have refrained from endorsing the initiative, signalling scepticism towards an American-led “parallel UN” with unclear authority and untested mechanisms.
They have demanded greater clarity regarding governance structures and have emphasised that any mandate must remain strictly limited to Gaza. Arab and Islamic countries invited to participate are reportedly weighing whether to engage at all, wary of legitimising a body perceived as bypassing both the United Nations and established international law.
Israel, meanwhile, has objected strongly to elements of the initiative, particularly the composition of the Executive Board. On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office stated that the appointments were not coordinated with Israel and contradict its stated policy.
Addressing the Knesset, Netanyahu acknowledged disagreements with Washington over the formation of the Executive Board accompanying the peace operations in Gaza. He dismissed the roles of Qatar and Turkey as marginal, insisting they possess no authority, influence, or military presence, and pledged that neither Turkish nor Qatari soldiers would enter Gaza.
He also expressed uncertainty over whether the Peace Council was intended to function as a new United Nations, even as he confirmed that Trump had invited him to join it.
Netanyahu further stated that the Israeli military currently controls approximately 52 per cent of Gaza and reiterated Israel’s objective of dismantling Hamas and fully demilitarising the territory.
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, urged a far more confrontational stance, arguing that Israel should tell Trump unequivocally that his peace plan is detrimental to Israeli interests.
Smotrich called for a full-scale invasion of Gaza, the destruction of Hamas, the opening of the Rafah Crossing, and the displacement of Gaza’s population. He also demanded the dismantling of the US-led civil-military coordination centre established after the ceasefire to implement the Trump plan.
An Arab diplomat based in London acknowledged to Al-Ahram Weekly that the initiative remains clouded by ambiguity and unanswered questions, yet he noted that several regional powers are willing to engage with the plan.
Their immediate priority, he explained, is to advance those elements that could tangibly improve Palestinians’ daily lives and restore a measure of normalcy, thereby averting the gravest scenario: the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the forced displacement of its population from their land.
He emphasised that certain components must be activated without delay, particularly those that would permit the entry of reconstruction materials and humanitarian aid, and enable the transfer of Gaza’s civil administration to Palestinian technocrats in accordance with a United Nations resolution.
More intricate questions concerning the council’s formation and mandate, he added, can only be addressed once fuller details are disclosed. “Such uncertainties must not be exploited to stall the second phase of implementation — an outcome Israel would welcome, as it would perpetuate a managed security crisis rather than open the path towards a genuine political settlement of the war in Gaza,” he added.
Beyond its structural peculiarities, the initiative raises profound legal and geopolitical concerns. No major European power has ratified the framework, and key actors including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and the European Commission have either expressed caution or remained conspicuously silent.
Hungary stands virtually alone among European states in having openly embraced the initiative.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney acknowledged that his country “will spare no effort to address the suffering in the Gaza Strip,” yet emphasised that the details, including financial obligations and operational mechanisms, remain under study.
The Kremlin has confirmed that Trump has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to participate, a move that underscores that the council is not confined to Gaza alone. Language in the invitation letters and draft charter frames the board as an institution intended to promote stability and lawful governance in conflict-affected regions broadly, without limiting its remit to Gaza.
Diplomats familiar with the process report that US officials conveyed Trump’s vision of the board as a template for addressing other conflicts where existing institutions, particularly the UN, are deemed ineffective. Outreach to leaders connected to unrelated conflicts, including the war in Ukraine, reinforces the impression that the board is envisioned as a standing alternative forum for global crisis management, even though its formal UN mandate remains limited to Gaza.
The charter’s provision allowing ratification by as few as three states is especially alarming, as it enables a small, aligned minority to legitimise an institution with expansive global reach.
The UN has responded cautiously. Its deputy spokesperson stated that the organisation would need to study the Peace Council’s structure once formally established, noting that the Security Council has authorised its work exclusively in Gaza and nowhere else.
While the White House insists the board is not intended to replace the UN, observers such as Daniel Forti of the International Crisis Group note that it acts as a “US shortcut” to wield global influence, with the potential to marginalise established multilateral institutions.
Thus, the sharply divergent positions over the composition and authority of Gaza’s transitional bodies underscore the profound uncertainty surrounding the territory’s “day after”. What is unfolding is also no longer simply a debate over post-war reconstruction or administrative arrangements in Gaza, but a far more consequential struggle over the broader architecture of global governance.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 22 January, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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