Gaza reconstruction plan under Trump’s Board of Peace reduced to pilot project: British publication

The recovery plan for war-battered Gaza, under US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace (BoP), has been significantly scaled back and, instead of reconstructing the entire territory, now envisions a small pilot project in the south of the besieged territory, the British publication The Guardian reported on Thursday.

The board was initially proposed in September 2025 and formally established in January. Under its charter, the US government serves as its official depository and Trump has designated the Donald J Trump Institute of Peace in Washington as the Board’s headquarters.

A UN Security Council resolution adopted in mid-November last year authorised the board, along with cooperating states, to establish an international stabilisation force in Gaza following a ceasefire that began in October under a Trump-backed plan accepted by Israel and Hamas.

According to the publication, the new pilot project now aims to construct a small temporary camp for a fraction of Gaza’s population, with a Palestinian administration, police and a small contingent of the International Security Force (ISF).

The plan is not expected to take shape before the end of 2026.

However, some steps have been taken in recent weeks to initiate the process, the British publication said. It said some Moroccan and Kosovan officers had arrived in Israel to form the cadre of the ISF, which is intended to protect the pilot camp, while a logistics base is under construction near Kerem Shalom to house the force’s vehicles, equipment and other material.

Construction on the pilot camp, situated near Rafah, to house civilians has yet to begin. “Satellite images of the area show disturbed earth but no new structures. Substantial progress is not expected before Israel holds elections on 27 October, which could bring down Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition government,” said The Guardian in its report.

An unnamed diplomat quoted in the report said that the BoP had “no choice but to make the most of very limited progress, as an admission of failure would open the way for extreme factions in the Israeli government with radically different plans for Gaza”.

“The aim is just to keep something going, keep the ball in play, because if you stop there are others with a more extreme agenda just waiting to jump in and take over, and they are talking about wholesale population transfer and colonisation,” the diplomat said.

There are growing concerns that Netanyahu, facing the prospect of electoral defeat, may launch another full-scale offensive in Gaza ahead of the October vote, the report added.

The publication’s report further added that Israeli officials have repeatedly suggested that a return to war is inevitable, citing Hamas’s refusal to disarm. Hamas, however, has said it is willing to lay down its weapons under certain conditions and participated in negotiations in Cairo over the weekend on possible disarmament mechanisms.

However, the Palestinian resistance group is unlikely to disarm as long as Israel keeps carrying out strikes in Gaza and continues to occupy large swathes of Gaza.

In January, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner pledged that aid access would be expanded and basic infrastructure, including water, sewage and electricity systems, hospitals and bakeries, would be restored across the Gaza Strip within 100 days.

The pilot camp outlined in the current blueprint would comprise portable cabins for tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza and would be established in the buffer zone along the ceasefire line near Rafah, said the publication’s report, adding that the camp would be overseen by the ISF and a specially trained Palestinian police force.

“Preference for settlement in the pilot camp would be given to former residents of the Rafah area, but it is not clear what other criteria would be used in vetting Palestinians wanting to move there,” added The Guardian.

The report also touched upon funds for the reconstruction of Gaza, stating that very little of the $17bn originally pledged for Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza has actually materialised.

Pakistan is among the 14 countries that signed the charter of the Board of Peace on January 22 on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, becoming a founding member of the body.

The list of founding members also includes Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Albania, Bahrain, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cambodia, El Salvador, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Mongolia, Morocco, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam, spanning the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caucasus.

The board was originally conceived to oversee the ceasefire and reconstruction of Gaza, but its charter expands its mandate to peace-building in all areas affected by or at risk of conflict. ...