The Gaza reconstruction plan pursued by Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” has been drastically scaled back, shifting from an ambitious blueprint to rebuild the entire enclave into a limited pilot project in southern Gaza.
Even the proposed pilot project, which would establish a temporary camp for only a very small proportion of Gaza’s two million displaced people under Palestinian administration and policing, with the involvement of a limited international security force, is not expected to materialise before the end of this year.
Limited Steps Towards an International Force
A series of gradual steps has been announced in recent weeks. A small number of Moroccan and Kosovan officers have arrived in Israel to form the nucleus of the “International Stabilisation Force”, which would be tasked with protecting the pilot camp.
A logistical support base for the future force is also nearing completion at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza. It is intended to store vehicles, equipment and other supplies.
However, preparatory work has not yet begun at the proposed camp near Rafah in southern Gaza, nor has construction started on the camp’s International Stabilisation Force support base.
Satellite images of the area show land being cleared, but no new structures have been built. No meaningful progress is expected before the Israeli elections on 27 October, which could bring down Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition government.
Israel has repeatedly violated the Trump-brokered ceasefire since it was announced last October. It has also obstructed reconstruction efforts and imposed severe restrictions on the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Western diplomats in Jerusalem believe the best prospect for progress in Gaza lies in the formation of a new Israeli government. However, it remains far from clear whether any alternative coalition would be substantially more flexible.
One Jerusalem-based diplomat said the Board of Peace had little choice but to make the most of the extremely limited progress achieved so far. Acknowledging failure, the diplomat warned, would create space for more extreme factions in the Israeli government that hold entirely different plans for Gaza.
“The goal is simply to keep things moving and preserve the momentum of the process, because if we stop, there are others with a far more extreme agenda waiting for the opportunity to step in and take control,” the diplomat said. “They are talking about mass displacement of the population and large-scale settlement.”
Fears of a Renewed Israeli Assault
Concerns are growing that Netanyahu, who faces the risk of electoral defeat, may launch another full-scale assault on Gaza before the October vote.
Israel has carried out repeated attacks on Gaza, killing more than 1,100 Palestinians since the ceasefire last October.
Israeli forces have also repeatedly advanced beyond the ceasefire line agreed in October, which had divided the enclave roughly equally between areas under Israeli control and those under Hamas control.
The Israeli military now directly occupies more than 60 per cent of Gaza’s territory and has established a buffer zone beyond that area.
A return to full-scale war would destroy even the Board of Peace’s modest pilot plan.
Mohammed Shehada, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, warned that Israel would use the project for propaganda purposes while escalating its military campaign.
“Israel is essentially trying to build something resembling a Potemkin village, a fake showcase settlement that is fully controlled and besieged, inhabited by a token number of people who would enjoy slightly better living conditions than their counterparts in western Gaza,” Shehada said.
“It would then use this façade of ‘progress’ to lend credibility to its escalating campaign against the rest of the enclave.”
Disarmament Talks in Cairo
Israeli officials have repeatedly suggested that a return to war is inevitable because Hamas has refused to disarm.
Hamas, for its part, has declared its willingness to relinquish its weapons under certain conditions and participated in negotiations in Cairo last weekend over possible disarmament mechanisms.
The Cairo talks with the Board of Peace addressed the disarmament of Hamas and rival Israeli-backed militias inside Gaza, the body that would receive the surrendered weapons, how those weapons would be stored, and whether assault rifles would be classified as offensive weapons or personal arms.
However, reports from the Egyptian capital suggest that progress on disarmament is unlikely while Israel continues to carry out air strikes and steadily advance into territory controlled by Hamas.
“Unless Israel commits to a gradual withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and changes the reality on the ground, there is no basis for the talks,” a Palestinian source told Haaretz.
Nikolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace-appointed High Representative for Gaza, has faced widespread criticism for adopting Israeli arguments in a report presented to the United Nations Security Council in May.
The report blamed Hamas for the stalled peace process without directly referring to Israeli violations.
Private Pressure on Israel Produces No Concessions
The limited pressure placed on Israel has been more restrained and private.
In June, Aryeh Lightstone, the Trump administration’s chief negotiator in Israel and an adviser to the Board of Peace, sent a private letter to Netanyahu’s government calling for the easing of restrictions on the entry of “dual-use” humanitarian materials into Gaza.
Those restrictions have blocked essential supplies, including water pipes and solar panels.
Lightstone’s letter, first reported by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster and confirmed by an official familiar with its contents, also called on the governing coalition to approve the planned entry of the International Stabilisation Force and a security-vetted Palestinian police force into Gaza.
According to the official, the Israeli government has not approved any of those requests.
From Comprehensive Reconstruction to a Rafah Camp
The pilot programme near Rafah bears little resemblance to the Board of Peace’s original ambitions.
When the plan was launched through an intensely optimistic presentation in January, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner promised to fully open the flow of aid and restore essential infrastructure across Gaza within 100 days.
That pledge included the restoration of water and sewage networks, electricity, hospitals and bakeries throughout the enclave.
After five months of deadlock, the far less ambitious pilot plan was agreed two weeks ago during meetings in Cyprus attended by Mladenov, Lightstone, advisers from the Tony Blair Institute and members of the “National Committee for the Administration of Gaza”.
The committee consists of 13 Palestinian professionals and technocrats. Israel has prevented them from entering Gaza, and they have operated from Cairo since the Board of Peace called for the committee’s formation at the beginning of this year.
Under the current plan, the proposed pilot camp would consist of prefabricated mobile homes designed to shelter tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians.
It would be established inside the buffer zone along the ceasefire line near Rafah.
Israeli forces would withdraw from that line, while the International Stabilisation Force and a specially trained Palestinian police force would oversee security at the crossing connecting the pilot camp with Hamas-controlled areas of Gaza.
The police force would formally be security-vetted by the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza and the International Stabilisation Force. In practice, however, Israel is expected to have the final say over who is recruited.
Training and Deployment Could Take Months
Training for the Palestinian police force has not yet begun in Egypt and is likely to take several months.
The international security force is expected to consist of approximately 5,000 personnel, only a quarter of the force originally envisaged.
It is expected to include troops from Morocco and Kosovo, and possibly Albania and Kazakhstan.
Their training will also take months, while the legal framework governing their presence remains under negotiation with the Israeli government.
“I think it will take until late 2026,” said an official familiar with the planning process. “If we can get this done and implemented on the ground by December, I will be very happy.”
Former residents of the Rafah area would be given priority for accommodation in the pilot camp. However, it remains unclear what other criteria would be used to screen Palestinians seeking to move there.
Critics of the entire project, including former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, have denounced it as a “concentration camp” under construction.
Board of Peace officials insist, however, that residents would be free to enter and leave the pilot area.
A broader range of humanitarian relief materials would be allowed into the camp. Even there, however, the Israeli government has insisted on distinguishing between humanitarian aid and reconstruction, permitting only the former.
Unclear Funding and Frozen Palestinian Assets
The source of funding for the pilot project remains unclear.
Only a very small portion of the $17 billion, equivalent to £12.6 billion, originally pledged for Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan has materialised.
On Monday, the European Union’s donor group for Palestine announced that it had raised €883 million, equivalent to £770 million, for Gaza.
The funds are intended to repair essential water, sanitation and waste management infrastructure and are supposed to complement Board of Peace projects.
The Board of Peace is also negotiating the diversion of part of the $11 billion in Palestinian tax revenues and frozen banking assets that Israel is withholding and confiscating to finance the project.
“We are working on this, and it is under discussion,” said a source familiar with the negotiations.
The proposal has angered the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which is facing severe financial pressure.
“These are not Israeli funds to be withheld or bargained over,” said Varsen Aghabekian, the Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs and expatriates. “These funds must be released immediately and without conditions.”
Palestinian Concerns Over a Divisive Pilot Project
Aghabekian said the shift from a comprehensive approach covering the entire Gaza Strip to a small pilot project placed Palestinians in a genuine dilemma.
“The humanitarian catastrophe cannot be managed through fragmented or partial measures,” she said.
“At the same time, any effort that genuinely contributes to saving Palestinian lives deserves careful consideration. However, our concern is that temporary arrangements must not become a substitute for a comprehensive solution or a means of normalising an unacceptable reality.”
According to an official familiar with the Cyprus meetings, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza was divided over whether to proceed with the Rafah pilot project.
Members feared that it could create divisions among Gaza’s 2.1 million Palestinians by placing the overwhelming majority in a secondary and lower-priority category for the provision of humanitarian relief.
Shehada said the Board of Peace had invited only selected members of the committee to Cyprus after the committee as a whole repeatedly rejected the pilot proposal.
The committee’s opposition was based on concerns that better food and living conditions inside the pilot camp could trigger a mass rush towards the area.
Such a situation, it feared, could lead to a repeat of deadly incidents witnessed during the war, when Israeli forces opened fire on crowds seeking food aid from a distribution system operated by the United States and Israel.
