Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Feb. 11 that Israel has joined the Board of Peace, set up by U.S. President Donald Trump to oversee the Gaza peace process and reconstruction.
“Ahead of my meeting at the White House with President Trump, I signed Israel’s accession as a member of the ‘Board of Peace,'” Netanyahu wrote in a post on X.
He noted that he would continue to strengthen the “unbreakable alliance” between Israel and the United States.
The Board of Peace is part of phase two of a U.S.-backed agreement between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas to end the war in Gaza and provide strategic insight, mobilize international resources, and ensure accountability during Gaza’s transition and reconstruction.
It will oversee the Palestinian technocratic committee, which is called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza and is led by former Palestinian Authority official Ali Abdel Hamid Sha’ath.
The board was established after the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution on Nov. 17, as a “transitional administration with international legal personality that will set the framework, and coordinate funding for, the redevelopment of Gaza.”
Among the founding executive board members are U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, presidential special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The board, chaired by Trump, will hold its first meeting on Feb. 19 in Washington to discuss Gaza’s reconstruction.
Israel and Hamas agreed to a U.S.-brokered cease-fire in October 2025, which saw the release of the final hostages.
The body of the final Israeli hostage, Ran Gvili, was recovered in Gaza last month. He was killed on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists crossed the border into Israel and killed 1,200 people, triggering the conflict in Gaza. His body, along with 251 live hostages, was taken back into Gaza by the terrorists and used as a bargaining chip by Hamas.
The Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza stated that 72,000 Palestinians were killed during the subsequent conflict.
One of the issues the board has to deal with is disarming Hamas, furthering Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and the deployment of an international peacekeeping force.
Discussions Over Iran Deal
Trump said after meeting Netanyahu in the White House on Feb. 11 that the talks had not yielded a definitive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.
“It was a very good meeting,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Trump has said that he would like the board to expand its remit to tackle global conflicts and has suggested that it might one day replace the United Nations.
“I wish the United Nations could do more. I wish we didn’t need a Board of Peace, but … with all the wars I settled, the United Nations never helped me on one war,” Trump said during a Jan. 20 White House press briefing.
The United Nations will select a new secretary-general later this year to replace António Guterres, who is stepping down after nearly a decade in the job.
So far, there are two candidates: Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who was nominated on Feb. 2.
The Trump administration last month distanced itself from much of the U.N.’s agenda.
On Jan. 7, the Trump administration issued a memorandum that ordered all executive departments and federal agencies to cease participating in or funding 66 organizations, conventions, and treaties, including 31 U.N. entities, which it stated are “contrary to the interests of the United States.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
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