Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar departed on Tuesday for the United States, where he will represent Israel at a ministerial-level United Nations Security Council session and the inaugural meeting of President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.
Sa’ar is scheduled to address the Security Council on Wednesday in New York, presenting Israel’s position on developments in the Middle East. The session is expected to include foreign ministers from the United Kingdom, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Pakistan and Indonesia.
On Thursday, Sa’ar will travel to Washington to represent Israel at the first session of the Board of Peace, which Trump will chair.
The Board of Peace on Feb. 12 welcomed Israel “as a founding member of our growing international organization,” with Jerusalem joining 26 other nations who have accepted the invitations to join the board, according to Board of Peace announcements.
Trump confirmed on Sunday that the Board of Peace would be meeting for the first time on Thursday, at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., following a Jan. 22 signing ceremony in Switzerland.
“Just last month, two dozen distinguished founding members joined me in Davos, Switzerland, to celebrate its official formation, and present a bold vision for the civilians in Gaza, and then, ultimately, far beyond Gaza—world peace!” the president wrote in his Truth Social post.
The meeting is expected to address a reconstruction plan for Gaza following two years of war along with plans for a Board of Peace-led International Stabilisation Force.
Trump said in the social media post that members of his Board of Peace “have pledged more than $5 billion dollars toward the Gaza humanitarian and reconstruction efforts, and have committed thousands of personnel to the International Stabilization Force and local police to maintain security and peace for Gaza.”
However, “very importantly,” Hamas terrorists must uphold their “commitment to full and immediate demilitarization,” he added.
Several top Hamas leaders, including Khaled Mashaal and Musa Abu Marzouk, have rejected key parts of the peace plan in recent weeks, including disarmament, despite having agreed to it in October 2025.
The disarmament of Hamas and all other Palestinian terrorist groups is a precondition for the reconstruction of Gaza, the Board of Peace’s high representative for the Strip, Nickolay Mladenov, emphasized on Friday.
“Gaza needs to be governed by a transitional authority, as authorized by the Security Council resolution, under which it needs to take on the full civilian and security control of Gaza,” Mladenov said during a panel discussion at the annual Munich Security Conference.
“That includes the disarmament of all factions in Gaza, not just Hamas,” he said. “Hamas, Islamic Jihad, others—there are plenty of them who have weapons and tunnels and production facilities inside Gaza.”
The main risk is that “we’re not going to implement the second phase of the ceasefire, but instead we’re going to move to the second phase of the war,” he said, calling it “a serious threat to the situation on the ground.”
“If Gaza returns to war, there’s no place for the Board of Peace—there’s no place for any of us, until we see what is left and potentially pick up the rubble at the end of it,” Mladenov warned.
Mladenov’s comments echoed remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the start of Phase 2 of the truce.
Israel is “at the threshold of the next phase: Disarming Hamas and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip,” the premier told Knesset lawmakers on Jan. 26, emphasizing that “the next phase is not reconstruction.”
Netanyahu has repeatedly said that disarmament “will happen—as our friend Trump said—the easy way or the hard way, but it will happen.”
