On 14 January 2026, the United States Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, announced that President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war had entered Phase Two. This phase includes the establishment of a new Palestinian technocratic governance, the reconstruction of Gaza, and the complete demilitarisation of Hamas.
These three core components of Phase Two are expected to be supervised by President Trump’s newly created Board of Peace, which was designed to resolve the Gaza conflict. However, as the Board of Peace has only recently been established, its ability to effectively address the current situation in Gaza remains uncertain. It is debatable whether Phase Two can be successfully implemented under the Board of Peace’s supervision given its organisational structure, economic assistance plans, and military arrangements.
Structural weaknesses and controversies
The most significant controversy surrounding the Board of Peace is that, although it is intended to function as a supervisory authority during the transition of Palestinian governance, the draft charter does not explicitly mention Gaza or Palestine. In addition, the White House announced the creation of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), an organisation reportedly composed of technocrats and non-partisan Palestinians to oversee the transitional governance period. This committee is tasked with managing Gaza’s daily affairs, including sanitation, utilities, and education. However, the publicly released membership list does not clearly reflect meaningful Palestinian political representation.
Similarly, the Gaza Executive Board, responsible for overseeing governance implementation, and the Founding Executive Board, responsible for investment and diplomatic affairs, both lack substantive Palestinian representation. There is also considerable overlap in membership between these two senior boards. As a result, Palestinian interests and political authority appear largely absent from the highest levels of decision-making regarding Gaza’s governance and reconstruction, while the Palestinian Authority has effectively been reduced to a limited administrative role.
The presence of multiple overlapping institutional bodies, combined with the absence of Palestinian political representatives at the highest decision-making level, highlights a longstanding structural concern. Major powers appear to be imposing solutions on Palestinians rather than negotiating with them.
Furthermore, member states of the Board of Peace have divergent geopolitical, economic, and strategic interests. These competing priorities may undermine procedural legitimacy and increase the risk of bureaucratic paralysis, political competition, or the exploitation of Gaza’s reconstruction for broader strategic purposes. These are all difficulties the Board of Peace is bound to encounter under its current institutional structure.
Uncertain financial commitments and priorities
The Board of Peace’s reconstruction initiative was formally introduced on 22 January 2026 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Jared Kushner, a founding Executive Board member, presented a “Master Plan” to create a “New Gaza”. The plan aims to transform Gaza into a tourism and economic zone to attract investment and rebuild infrastructure.
While this proposal may offer commercial opportunities, it lacks transparency regarding funding sources, allocation mechanisms, and plans for the resettlement and protection of Palestinian residents. These risks reducing complex historical, political, and humanitarian realities to purely economic considerations.
At the Board of Peace inaugural meeting in Washington, DC on 19 February 2026, President Trump announced that the United States would commit 10 billion dollars to Gaza’s reconstruction. However, the origin and allocation of these funds were not clearly specified. Other member states, including Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Qatar, Uzbekistan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, collectively pledged 7 billion dollars. The United Nations committed 2 billion dollars in humanitarian assistance, while FIFA was expected to contribute 75 million dollars to support football related development.
According to President Trump, the Board of Peace and its partners could eventually provide up to 70 billion dollars for Gaza’s reconstruction. However, significant uncertainty remains regarding the availability and implementation of these funds. For instance, FIFA’s official statement did not confirm a specific donation amount, instead noting that funds would be raised “from international leaders and institutions.”
In addition, the Board of Peace has proposed introducing a stablecoin linked to the US dollar to facilitate digital payments in Gaza. While this initiative aims to address the shortage of physical currency caused by the conflict, it remains in the planning stage. Questions remain regarding its technical feasibility, its potential impact on Gaza’s economic relationship with the West Bank, and the reliability of Gaza’s digital infrastructure.
These developments suggest that the Board of Peace’s reconstruction strategy prioritises economic redevelopment over political sovereignty and security, while lacking sufficient clarity regarding funding sources and implementation plans. This creates substantial strategic and political risks, and it remains unclear when these substantial political promises will be realised in Gaza.
Unclear mandate and operational challenges
The success of Phase Two depends heavily on ensuring Gaza’s demilitarisation and maintaining security. To achieve this, the United States appointed Major General Jasper Jeffers to command the International Stabilisation Force (ISF), which operates under the authority of the Board of Peace. According to Jeffers, the Board intends to deploy 20,000 troops across five sectors of Gaza. Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, and Albania have pledged troops, while Indonesia has indicated its willingness to deploy up to 8,000 personnel. The Board also plans to deploy 12,000 Palestinian police officers in the long term, with training conducted in Egypt and Jordan.
However, the operational timeline, rules of engagement, and command authority of the ISF remain unclear. For instance, under what circumstances the Board of Peace would be authorised to deploy the ISF to undertake military action. There is also no publicly available framework outlining how the force would respond to potential conflicts involving Hamas or the Israel Defense Forces. Furthermore, the Trump administration has proposed constructing a military base in Gaza to serve as an operational hub for the ISF, but this plan has not received formal approval from any government.
Amid these many uncertainties, the armed capacity of the ISF still needs to await the Board of Peace to establish and assign it clearer strategic objectives and responsibilities before it can operate effectively. However, this will first require the Board of Peace to clarify the political commitments of its member states and to define its own mandate and scope of authority before meaningful action can be taken.
Conclusion
Although the Board of Peace was established with the stated goal of promoting stability and restoring legitimate governance in Gaza, its overlapping organisational structures, lack of Palestinian representation, unclear funding commitments, and ambiguous military mandate raise serious concerns about its effectiveness.
In many respects, the Phase Two reconstruction plan appears to reflect a top-down projection of President Trump’s personal will, rather than a politically inclusive process. Its negotiation framework, primarily driven by economic interests, risks sidelining Palestinians’ human rights, sovereignty, and long-term security in Gaza within the Phase Two agenda, while the underlying political conflicts remain insufficiently addressed.
The stance of Hamas’s forthcoming leadership towards the Board of Peace’s reconstruction plan will also be a decisive factor shaping Gaza’s future trajectory. As a result, the Board of Peace’s reconstruction initiative faces significant structural, political, and operational challenges, and its ability to achieve lasting stability in Gaza remains highly uncertain.
