U.S. President Donald Trump presided over the first Board of Peace meeting in Washington on Thursday morning, where officials gathered to discuss Phase 2 of his Gaza plan.
More than 40 countries, as well as the European Union, confirmed their attendance at Thursday’s inaugural meeting, an unnamed senior official in the U.S. administration told the Associated Press ahead of the event.
However, more than a dozen—including Germany, Italy, Norway and Switzerland—attended as observers, as they’ve declined Trump’s invitation to join the Board of Peace, according to the official.
In addition to Trump, speakers at the summit included Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Special Envoy Steve Witkoff; Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz; Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; former British Prime Minister Tony Blair; and the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov.
Updates are expected from the Gaza Executive Board, which functions as the link between the Board of Peace and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), the transitional Palestinian body that Washington hopes will enter the Strip to replace Hamas’s rule.
The Executive Board will detail efforts to create a governing system and services for Gaza, the anonymous U.S. official told the Associated Press.
Trump stated on Sunday that the Board members pledged more than $5 billion “toward the Gaza humanitarian and reconstruction efforts, and have committed thousands of personnel to the International Stabilization Force and local police” set to be deployed to the Strip under his peace plan.
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, Mladenov said on Feb. 13.
“Gaza needs to be governed by a transitional authority, as authorized by the Security Council Resolution [2803], under which it needs to take on the full civilian and security control of Gaza,” Mladenov said, speaking during a panel discussion at the annual Munich Security Conference.
“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,” the high representative warned attendees.
Strengthening their hold
Hamas terrorists are again strengthening their hold over the Gaza Strip by placing loyalists in “government” roles, collecting taxes and paying salaries, according to Israeli intelligence seen by Reuters on Thursday.
The terrorist group “is advancing steps on the ground meant to preserve its influence and grip in the Gaza Strip ‘from the bottom up’ by means of integrating its supporters in government offices, security apparatuses and local authorities,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a document presented to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late last month.
“Looking ahead, without Hamas disarmament and under the auspices of the technocrat committee, Hamas will succeed, in our view, to preserve influence and control in the Gaza Strip,” it added.
Netanyahu’s office and the IDF did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment, but an anonymous Israeli government official dismissed the notion of any future role for the terrorists as “twisted fantasy,” saying that “Hamas is finished as a governing authority in the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas named five district governors, all of them with links to its Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades “military” wing, two Palestinian sources told Reuters. It has also placed operatives in Gaza’s economy and interior ministries, which manage taxation and security, the sources added.
Ali Shaath, chief commissioner of the NCAG, “may have the key to the car, and he may even be allowed to drive, but it is a Hamas car,” one of the local sources told Reuters.
Asked about last month about Hamas’s commitment to cede control to the NCAG, Abu Marzouk told Qatar’s Al Jazeera that “nobody can enter Gaza without understandings with Hamas.
“If Hamas doesn’t agree to the administrative committee, it cannot enter the Gaza Strip,” he said, claiming to have veto power over its members.
“We had no objection to the people coming in, except for two. Through the mediators—especially the Egyptian mediator, our brothers in Egypt—we stated this clearly. One was removed from the committee, and the other was barred from crossing and will be replaced,” the terrorist said.
Last month, Reuters reported that Hamas was seeking to absorb approximately 10,000 of its terrorist operatives into the NCAG.
The report, which cited four sources familiar with the matter, noted that many Hamas operatives have already been patrolling Gaza as the terrorist group is attempting to reassert its grip in areas not under IDF control.
“Hamas must demilitarize as they agreed to do when they accepted the 20-Point Plan,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson told JNS at the time. “The demilitarization of Hamas remains a central challenge.”
