Trump's Board of Peace Unveils $2.45bn Gaza Recovery Plan

President Donald Trump's Board of Peace announced a $2.45bn Gaza recovery plan during a UN General Assembly meeting in New York, but reconstruction has yet to begin nearly a year after the ceasefire, with Israel's demand for full Hamas disarmament before troop withdrawal remaining the central obstacle, the BBC reported.

The funding will cover 66 programs over six months, targeting housing, diesel generation, and waste removal. Board member Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, acknowledged the plan faced "different delays on different things, for whatever reason," but insisted officials were "fully committed to doing it," according to the BBC.

For Israel, the stalemate underscores a strategic dilemma: how to ensure Gaza's demilitarization without creating a power vacuum that could enable Hamas to rearm. The IDF continues to hold approximately 60% of Gaza, with Israeli officials insisting that troops will not withdraw until Hamas is fully disarmed, a position that has prevented reconstruction from beginning despite the ceasefire that took effect in October last year.

The board admitted substantial donations were still needed, with $18bn pledged but only $280m received so far. Full recovery and reconstruction will require about $71bn over the next decade, officials estimated, according to the BBC.

US envoy Steve Witkoff declared that "real progress" had been made over the past year, noting that "all of the hostages are home" and "there is a ceasefire, imperfect as it may be." Yet the board did not set a date for reconstruction to begin, the BBC reported.

The disarmament of Hamas has emerged as the key sticking point. The Palestinian group has agreed to give up its weapons in exchange for a phased Israeli troop withdrawal from the territory currently held by the IDF, but Israel has insisted Hamas must fully disarm before any pullout begins, according to the BBC. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared the military would stay in Gaza until the group was "genuinely" disarmed.

Violence has continued amid the deadlock, with near-daily Israeli strikes, the BBC reported. At least 1,408 Palestinians, including more than 300 children, have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since the ceasefire began, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. The IDF reported five soldiers killed in combat since the ceasefire and one contractor killed in an "operational accident," the BBC stated.

An estimated 80% of all structures have been destroyed or damaged, the UN reported, leaving more than 60 million tonnes of rubble and 1.2 million people living in tents or makeshift shelters with limited access to clean water and sanitation, according to the BBC.

Michael Eisenberg, an Israeli-American Board of Peace member, outlined the next steps to the BBC: "Because it's a war zone, you need to remove unexploded ordnance. And then there are still hundreds of kilometres of tunnels underneath Gaza which need to be destroyed as well. Once that's all done, Gazans can get to rebuilding again."

The Board of Peace was created as part of Trump's 20-point Gaza peace plan, unveiled alongside Netanyahu in September last year, as JFeed reported. In August, the board's high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, warned that a collapse of the ceasefire would be "a point of no return" for the region.