Whose peace?
Whose Gaza?

The video Trump shared in February 2025 ran for 33 seconds. It showed a Gaza rebuilt around luxury developments bearing his name, a giant golden statue of the president and an invented scene of Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu relaxing beside a pool. For Palestinians whose communities had been devastated, the president was circulating a vision of their homeland as a resort built around himself. Guardian News preserved the video .

He had already put forward a proposal with consequences far beyond the video. On February 4, Trump said the United States should take over and redevelop Gaza, with Palestinians relocated elsewhere. In the announcement and subsequent reporting, the people who lived there were being treated as a population to resettle so that someone else could decide what to build on their land.

Kushner had raised the property question a year earlier. During a February 2024 conversation at Harvard, he discussed the value of Gaza’s waterfront. He would later join the board overseeing reconstruction, giving him a formal role in the future of the territory he had discussed as a development opportunity.

Watch Kushner’s full Harvard conversation

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At Davos on January 22, 2026, Trump signed the Board of Peace charter surrounded by delegates. Its membership terms gave governments an incentive to contribute substantial sums. An invited state would normally serve for no more than three years, with renewal at the chairman’s discretion. A contribution of more than $1 billion in cash within the first year would exempt it from that limit.

The money would not free a member from Trump’s authority. Majority decisions still require his approval. He can create or dissolve subsidiary bodies and veto executive decisions. The charter names him personally as chairman, separately from his role representing the United States, and allows him to designate his successor.

The charter also gives the organization a peace-building mission extending beyond Gaza. Governments signing up were accepting a structure in which their collective decisions remained subject to one man’s approval. Read the signed charter: Articles 2–4 .

Watch the charter announcement

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The official roster checked on October 3 listed 28 states, including the United States and Israel. It brought together governments with direct stakes in the region—Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Türkiye—and leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Argentina’s Javier Milei, who have cultivated close relations with Trump. Belarus, under Alexander Lukashenko, was listed too. Inspect the membership list .

Israel’s participation put Netanyahu among the leaders involved in deciding Gaza’s future even as he faced an International Criminal Court arrest warrant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity there. ICC · the Palestine case and warrants .

The people appointed to oversee the work.

Alongside the member states, the White House appointed a seven-person founding Executive Board: Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Tony Blair, Marc Rowan, Ajay Banga and Robert Gabriel. No Palestinian was appointed to it. A further Gaza Executive Board included Hakan Fidan and Sigrid Kaag. These were appointed bodies, separate from the roster of member countries. The White House’s appointments .

The appointments gave Kushner a role alongside financiers, diplomats and political veterans in overseeing a reconstruction effort affecting Palestinians’ homes and livelihoods. The Palestinian body announced with the plan would work further down the chain of authority.

The Palestinian body in the arrangement is the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, led by Ali Sha’ath. It is responsible for everyday civil administration and restoring public services. Above it sit the Board of Peace and its oversight arrangements, with Nickolay Mladenov serving as High Representative for Gaza. Read the announced roles .

Palestine does not appear on the Board’s list of member states. Palestinians are expected to undertake the work of local government within a framework whose international decisions are made above them. Who has a state seat?

Restoring services carries enormous responsibility in a place where homes and infrastructure have been destroyed. Yet responsibility for delivery does not give the committee the same authority as the bodies supervising it. The arrangement leaves a basic problem unresolved: Palestinians are being asked to rebuild daily life without an equivalent voice in the organization setting the terms.

The framework had received UN Security Council backing through Resolution 2803, adopted in November 2025. The mandate for the Board’s Gaza role runs through the end of 2027. That endorsement authorized a transitional arrangement; it did not give Trump ownership of Gaza or settle the question of Palestinian self-government. Commons Library · the mandate and transition .

In September 2026, many families in Gaza still depended on water delivered by truck. OCHA, the UN humanitarian office, reported on September 11 that 91% of the households assessed faced moderate or high water insecurity. Damaged infrastructure, restrictions on access and shortages of supplies continued to disrupt basic services. Read the humanitarian report .

The shortage affected cooking, washing and healthcare. Overcrowding and inadequate sanitation increased the risk of disease, OCHA warned. Families were also approaching the rainy season in shelters that offered little protection, while restrictions on essential materials and a lack of funding hampered preparations for winter.

The risks of seeking basic supplies had already been documented in June 2025, when the UN human-rights office reported more than 400 Palestinians killed at aid-distribution points. Its account of the aid crisis came in the same month as Washington’s veto of a permanent ceasefire demand. All 14 other Security Council members had supported the measure. Washington used its veto to stop it.

When Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN’s acting Middle East peace envoy, visited Gaza, the requests he heard were for housing, water, healthcare, education and work. In his assessment published on September 30, he described continuing barriers to humanitarian deliveries and families anxious to avoid another winter in tents. UN · his assessment from Gaza .

On September 23, a week before Alakbarov’s assessment, the Board of Peace announced a $2.45 billion, six-month blueprint covering 66 projects, including infrastructure, education and healthcare. Work would start in Rafah and move north through Gaza. The sequence depended on Hamas relinquishing its governing role, weapons being decommissioned and Israeli forces withdrawing.

Sha’ath also rejected the displacement of Gazans, saying the committee wanted people to stay and build their lives in Gaza. That commitment addressed the fear raised by Trump’s original proposal to resettle the population elsewhere. The National · the plan and Sha’ath’s response, September 23 .

The six-month timetable depended on political and security decisions the announcement itself could not resolve. Money would have to turn into working water systems, accessible healthcare and homes people could move into. Palestinians would also need a say in what came next. By the end of September, the families meeting UN officials were still asking for somewhere to live before winter.