Trump’s ‘Peace Board’ proposal met with skepticism, warning amid Gaza tremors
The winter has not been kind to Gaza. Heavy rain battered the coast, and strong Mediterranean winds toppled tents housing many of Gaza’s nearly two million displaced Palestinians.
There is no peace or reconstruction.
The two-year war eased with a ceasefire three months ago, but the fighting is far from over. More than 450 people have been killed since then in Israeli airstrikes and gun battles with Hamas militants, according to local health officials.
Each side blames the other, imprisoning civilians like Mustafa Abu Jabeh.
“It was a tsunami. Our world has been changed,” he said.
About 100 children have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in early October, UNICEF spokesman James Elder said. The number represents only cases where sufficient information is available, and could be much higher, he said, especially as more severe winter weather approaches.
“For things to improve, we need a new government that will cooperate with Israel.”
That’s the promise of the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, to help it transition “from conflict to peace and development.” It is an ambitious follow-up to a shaky first phase, which saw Hamas release 20 live hostages and all but one body of the dead.
But it has also seen many violations, including continue Israel’s restrictions on aid imports in Gaza and the work of NGOs and United Nations agencies.
And now the process itself is increasingly controversial.
Carney is among the leaders taking a cautious approach
Trump asked 60 world leaders to sit on his “Peace board,” throwing a “a bold new approach to global conflict resolution” in invitation letters.
Prime Minister Mark Carney accepted, although on Sunday in Doha, Qatar, he said that his officials have not passed “all the details of the framework, how it will work, what the funding is, etc..” Other leaders were similarly cautious.
A draft of the board’s invitation letter calls for countries to pay $1 billion for a permanent seat on the board, something a government official told CBC News that Canada has not been asked to do and will not do.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has been asked by US President Donald Trump to join a ‘Peace Board’ to oversee the interim governance of the Gaza Strip, a senior Canadian official told reporters accompanying the prime minister on his overseas trip. Carney will accept the invitation, the official said.
“Canada wants money to have a big impact,” Carney told reporters. “We still don’t have uninterrupted aid to the people of Gaza.” He called that “a condition for moving forward on this.”
Some countries have expressed concern about the document attached to the Peace Council, which seems to be the first of many that the organization will try to resolve, possibly sidelining the United Nations.
The constitution outlined by Trump says “there is a need for an international peace-building organization that is flexible and effective,” criticizing “institutions that often fail.”
The special envoy of US President Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, announced on Wednesday the launch of Phase 2 of the plan to end the conflict in Gaza with the establishment of a technical government of Palestine in the unified territory.
In addition to the high-level Peace Council, Trump has appointed various politicians, politicians and billionaires to two high-level committees that will oversee the Gaza process. That includes Turkish and Qatari officials, who are filing complaints with Israel, which sees these countries as highly critical of its military presence in Gaza and more sympathetic to Hamas.
But the real work should be done by the team 15 Palestinian expertsunaffiliated with Hamas and vetted by Israel’s Mossad spy agency, which has been appointed to take over the day-to-day operations of the Hamas government – this after 19 years of rule by the militant group and five wars with Israel.
68 million tons of debris left in Gaza as a result of the war
As the chairman of the National Management Committee for Gaza, Ali Shaath has ambitious plans to dig Gaza out of about 68 million tons of war debris within three years.
“If I bring in bulldozers and push the debris into the sea and make new islands, I can win a new land for Gaza,” said a construction engineer and former official in the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Before that happens, however, more needs to be done – not least a change in Israel’s policy of barring tractors and other heavy equipment from entering Gaza. Even the metal tent poles are kept outside because Israel says Hamas can use them for weapons.
Under the ceasefire plan, Hamas needs to disarm and give up power.
“Hamas will not take part in governing Gaza,” the group’s spokesman, Hazem Qassem, told CBC News. Regarding disarmament, he said it would be “internal Palestinian ways to discuss the issue of disarmament.”
A Palestinian American activist and activist who has been a mediator between Hamas and the US government said there is doubt within the militant group, due to distrust of Israel.
“Hamas says, ‘Let’s say we end the war, who will guarantee our security?'” said Bishara Bahbah. “Why are they disarming if Israel is going after them again? There is no benefit.”
The expectations of the demilitarization strategy also remain unclear, without a list of the weapons that need to be provided (rockets and other heavy weapons or light guns too?) and without a timetable.
Countries are reluctant to join the peacekeeping force
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to dismiss the jump to the second stage as a big deal, and called the establishment of the technical committee a “declarative step.” Israel refused to move beyond the first stage until the body of the the last captive it was found and returned by Hamas.
What happens if Hamas does not disarm?
Last month, Trump said “there will be hell to pay.” But forcing this issue is complicated, as Israel found out in two years of fighting, which failed to win the group completely.
The task of disarmament will be given to a new international peacekeeping force envisaged in the second phase. Under a Mandate of the UN Security Councilthousands of soldiers from various countries will be sent to Gaza to protect the safe zone with Israel, maintain security and train the regular Palestinian police.
But the mandate has been criticized as “ambiguous and unclear” by countries such as China, which are also concerned that the force will not be under UN control but under the US-led Peacekeeping Council.
The challenge is to scare the most powerful forces in the world.
“Confronting Hamas and forcing them to lay down their arms. I mean, I don’t know any country that is able and willing to do that,” said foreign policy expert Emmanuel Navon, CEO of think-tank Em2C and a lecturer at Tel Aviv University.
A young Palestinian woman accepted to the University of Regina is still stuck in Gaza. He is one of the many Palestinian students who cannot begin their studies in Canada.
Indeed, no country has officially registered. Egypt, Jordan and Azerbaijan considered it but decided not to go, with the president of Azerbaijan suggesting that there is no peace to keep, yet.
garlic you have surrenderedbut Israel sees President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as too close to Hamas.
“Turkey will come in to support them, not to stop Hamas,” said Navon.
Funding for the reconstruction of Gaza has been suspended
All of this uncertainty has left rebuilding funds in limbo. The World Bank measurements that $70 billion will be needed, with the United States, the European Union and the oil-rich Gulf states pledging to be major donors.
Canada is “ready” for an unspecified amount “to support the restoration of essential services, especially the health sector, when conditions permit.”
But countries are not yet ready to sign the checks. A conference in Cairo to raise funds for the reconstruction of Gaza, scheduled for November, has been postponed indefinitely due to the ongoing fighting.
The United Arab Emirates is looking for “more political clarity on where this is going” and more certainty about the call for an end to violence for an eventual Palestinian state, said presidential adviser in Abu Dhabi.
Although he signed the terms of the cease-fire, Netanyahu has already started like that announced “There will be no Palestinian state.”
That fits the political tone in Israel, which has been sharpened since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, in which about 1,200 Israelis were killed and 251 captured, according to Israeli officials.
Israel’s attack on Gaza has resulted in the deaths of more than 71,000 Palestinians, health officials in Gaza sayincluding more than 450 since a ceasefire agreement was reached in October.
Netanyahu and his staunch coalition have no desire for reconciliation over Gaza, especially now that all living Israeli hostages have been released. But with Trump’s own name in this ceasefire agreement, he has the final say here.
“The prime minister [Netanyahu] he can try to convince him, try to argue behind closed doors, but he will do exactly as the president tells him,” said Nadav Eyal, a foreign policy analyst for Israel’s Channel 13 and an assistant professor and research fellow at Columbia University in New York City.
Despite the Hamas disarmament agreement, Eyal said, the view from Israel is that this second phase “actually says that we are willing to live with a certain status quo.”
