Donald Trump’s Peace Council received just a small fraction of the $17 billion promised for Gaza, preventing the US president from moving forward with his plan for the Palestinian enclave, sources told Reuters.
Ten days before Israeli and American attacks on Iran plunged the region into war, Trump hosted a conference in Washington at which Gulf Arab states pledged billions for the governance and reconstruction of Gaza after two years of destruction by Israel.
The plan envisages the large-scale reconstruction of the coastal enclave following the disarmament of the Palestinian militant group Hamas — whose attacks on Israel triggered the recent conflict in Gaza — and the withdrawal of Israeli troops.
The funding pledges were also intended to pay for the activities of a National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a budding US-backed group of Palestinian technocrats that sought to take control of Gaza from Hamas.
The Peace Council denied, in a statement published this Friday on social media after the publication of the Reuters article, that it is experiencing funding problems.
‘The Peace Council is a lean, execution-focused organization that mobilizes capital as needed. There are no financing restrictions. To date, all funding requests have been met immediately and in full,’ he stated.
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NCAG representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One of the sources, a person with direct knowledge of the council’s operations, said that of the ten countries that had pledged funds, only three — the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and the US itself — had contributed funds.
According to this source, who did not go into details, financing has amounted to less than US$1 billion so far. The Iran war has ‘affected everything’, exacerbating previous funding difficulties, the source said.
NCAG was unable to enter Gaza due to both funding and security concerns, the source added. Even after a ceasefire agreement last October, Israeli strikes killed at least 700 people in Gaza, according to health officials there, while militant attacks killed four soldiers, according to Israel.
The second source, a Palestinian official familiar with the matter, said the council has informed Hamas and other Palestinian factions that NCAG cannot enter Gaza at the moment due to a lack of funding.
‘There is no money available at the moment,’ the council’s envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, was quoted as saying to Palestinian groups.
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Hamas has repeatedly stated that it is ready to hand over governance to NCAG, led by Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister of the Palestinian Authority who currently exercises limited self-rule in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The intention is for the Shaath committee to take control of Gaza’s ministries and manage its police force.
He and his 14 committee members are holed up in a Cairo hotel under the supervision of US and Egyptian agents, a diplomatic source said.
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The rehabilitation of Gaza, where four-fifths of the buildings were destroyed in two years of Israeli bombing, is expected to cost around US$70 billion, according to projections from global institutions.
The tentative plan for the future of Gaza echoes other ambitious initiatives by Trump, who has sought to project himself as the world’s peacemaker but has struggled to end the Ukraine war as he said he would, and sees this week’s truce with Iran under heavy pressure.
Disarmament
Egypt, which has been the host of disarmament talks, invited Hamas to more meetings on Saturday, according to a source from the militant group.
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The ceasefire halted all-out war but left Israeli troops in control of a depopulated zone covering well more than half of Gaza, with Hamas in power in a narrow coastal strip.
Trump’s council has been leading negotiations with Hamas and other Palestinian factions on disarmament. Israel advocates that Hamas lay down its arms before withdrawing its troops from Gaza, and Hamas says it will not comply without guarantees of Israel’s departure and an end to the shooting in the enclave.
The diplomatic source familiar with the disarmament talks said the impasse remains and he fears Israel is looking for an excuse to relaunch a full-scale offensive in Gaza.
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Israeli military authorities have already stated that they are preparing for a rapid return to full-scale warfare if Hamas does not lay down its weapons.
The Gaza war began with Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli records.
Israel’s ensuing two-year campaign killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials, spread famine and displaced most of the territory’s population.
