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President Donald Trump said Sunday that members of his newly created Board of Peace have pledged $5 billion toward rebuilding war-ravaged Gaza. Speaking from West Palm Beach, Florida, the president said the pledges would be formally announced when board members gather in Washington on Thursday for their first meeting. Trump also said the board would commit “thousands of personnel” to international stabilization and police forces for the territory.
In a social media posting announcing the pledges, Trump described the Board of Peace as “the most consequential International Body in History,” and said it was “my honor to serve as its Chairman.” He did not provide details on which member nations were making the reconstruction pledges or which countries would contribute personnel to the proposed stabilization and police mission.
Trump said the board’s first meeting will be held at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a location that the State Department said in December would be the Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace. The building, however, is the subject of litigation brought by former employees and executives of the nonprofit think tank after the Republican administration seized the facility last year and fired almost all of the institute’s staff.
The first publicly described staffing commitment tied to the proposed Gaza mission came from Indonesia. Indonesia’s military said Sunday that up to 8,000 Indonesian troops are expected to be ready by the end of June for a potential deployment to Gaza as part of a humanitarian and peace mission, describing it as the first firm commitment Trump’s administration has received.
Rebuilding Gaza, Trump’s announcement comes as U.N., World Bank and European Union estimates put the reconstruction price tag at $70 billion. The same assessments described few areas in the Gaza Strip as left unscathed by more than two years of Israeli bombardment.
The ceasefire deal that shaped the transition calls for an armed international stabilization force to keep security and ensure the disarming of Hamas, a key demand of Israel. The AP report said few countries have expressed interest so far in taking part in the proposed force, and it described Israeli operations as continuing to affect Palestinians near military-held zones even after the heaviest fighting had subsided.
Trump’s Board of Peace was initially framed as a mechanism for ending the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, but the AP reported it has taken shape with a broader ambition to resolve global crises. The AP said the move also appears to be a new U.S. effort to sidestep the United Nations as Trump aims to reset the post-World War II international order, and that many of his European and other allies have declined to join what they view as a possible attempt to rival the U.N. Security Council.
It was not clear how many of more than 20 board members would attend the inaugural meeting, the AP said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who held White House talks with Trump last week, was not expected to be there.