A fund set up by the World Bank for the Peace Council, established by US President Donald Trump, has yet to receive any funding, although the United States and other countries have pledged contributions totaling $17 billion. This was reported by the Financial Times (FT) on Wednesday, citing four sources familiar with the matter. TASR writes about it according to the Jerusalem Post.
- The World Bank Fund for the Peace Council has not yet received any funding.
- Donors send money directly to a JPMorgan account instead of a World Bank fund.
The Peace Council has already accepted donations, but according to its spokesman, they were credited directly to an account at JPMorgan Bank. “Several options have been created for receiving funds,” a representative of the Peace Council told the FT newspaper. “Currently, donors have decided to use other options,” he explained.
Financial statements of the Council
According to him, the Peace Council will submit its financial statements to its own executive board “at such time as it deems appropriate.”
According to the FT, Morocco contributed around $20 million, which helped fund the office of the High Representative for the Gaza Strip, Nikolay Mladenov, and the salaries of the Palestinian Technocratic Committee, which is supposed to administer the Gaza Strip.
In addition to Morocco, the United Arab Emirates has provided $100 million to train a new police force for Gaza, but the funds are frozen and the program has not yet started, the FT said, citing two people familiar with the matter. The US State Department has pledged to transfer approximately $1.2 billion to Peace Council projects, but so far this has not happened.
Lack of progress in Gaza
A spokesman for the Council stated that although public tenders for security and reconstruction work had already begun, no contracts had yet been concluded. “This is mainly due to the fact that we are not yet operating in Gaza,” he told the FT, arguing that the Palestinian militant group Hamas had not been disarmed.
The FT recalls that Trump initially presented a multi-phase peace plan for the Gaza Strip, in which he outlined the disarmament of Hamas, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the gradual reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
But there has been no progress in any of these areas, the FT wrote, adding that “not a single dollar” has been spent on Gaza reconstruction, according to two people familiar with planning in Gaza.
