Formal invitations to serve on the Board of Peace responsible for overseeing the postwar management of Gaza went out to world leaders on Wednesday, a US official tells reporters, while declining to divulge which countries were invited to take part.
The Times of Israel reported last month that the US had informed interlocutors that it secured commitments from Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany to have their leaders join US President Donald Trump on the Board of Peace.
The US is hoping to more than double that number, but has had limited success to date, a senior Arab diplomat said last week, adding that Washington is considering filling spots on the panel with the heads of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Economic Forum.
But briefing reporters on Wednesday, a US official is bullish about the Board of Peace’s makeup, saying that Trump was personally involved in selecting who would receive an invitation to join him on the panel. According to the official, invitations were sent out earlier in the day to “a lot of countries” and “there has been a very overwhelming response.”
The Board of Peace will be tasked with overseeing the work of a Palestinian technocratic committee that will manage daily affairs in Gaza, which was also established on Wednesday.
“For the first time in Gaza in almost a long time, there’s no Palestinian Authority and there’s no Hamas governing it. This really has the potential to be the beginning of a new era,” the US official says, adding that the members of the technocratic committee will be publicly unveiled in the next 48 hours and have been carefully vetted in collaboration with Arab states.
“Our job at the Board of Peace is to be supporting them, giving them all the best practices of what’s being done in the region and find ways to give them every opportunity to be successful,” the US official says.
The Board of Peace will also have an executive committee that will effectively be headed by Nickolay Mladenov. The former UN envoy to the Mideast has been given the title of Board of Peace high representative. Also serving on the executive committee will be former UK prime minister Tony Blair, and Trump’s top aides Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, officials have told The Times of Israel.
The executive committee will work more closely with the technocratic committee than the Board of Peace, which will only meet a handful of times each year and largely play a symbolic role that offers legitimacy for the initiative as it needs to fundraise a significant amount of cash.
Also being established as part of phase two of Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan is an International Stabilization Force that will be tasked with providing security in the Strip.
The US has struggled to get countries on board amid heavy speculation that Hamas will disarm. One of the two countries Washington had publicly touted, Azerbaijan, announced earlier this month that it would not be participating.
But the US official briefing reporters downplayed the challenge, insisting that enough countries have volunteered to contribute troops to allow the initiative to move forward.
Moreover, he appears to confirm The Times of Israel’s reporting on the shrinking of the ISF mandate to more limited tasks such as securing borders and humanitarian aid, rather than kinetic activity to disarm Hamas.
“A lot of the work inside Gaza will be done by the local Palestinian police forces, which we think is the most important element of this plan, so we’ve been putting a lot of time into that,” the US official says.
He says more information regarding the ISF will be released in about two weeks, indicating that it is not at the top of the administration’s priorities.
Asked whether Turkey will take part in the ISF amid fierce Israeli pushback, the US official avoids answering directly, while touting Ankara’s productive role.
“Turkey has played a very integral role in getting to the ceasefire, and President Trump is very grateful to President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and (his team)…. They’ve done an incredible job really working with us, and we think it’s very important to have them involved, as they have influence with Hamas,” the US official says.
“We want to see Turkey and Israel start to rebuild their relationship,” he says, adding that sustained calm in Gaza will create more space for that to occur.
“President Erdogan has a big heart for the people of Gaza — hopefully we can get both sides to start deescalating their rhetoric, start focusing on their interests and seeing that there’s a lot of benefit that both countries can have in working together,” the US official says.
The first meeting of the Board of Peace is slated to take place on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos next week, and a second US official on the briefing says an announcement will likely be made at the gathering.
“People are in a celebratory mood. The fact that this coincides with Davos feels a little bit like it was meant to be,” the US official says.
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