US President Donald Trump has named former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as members of his so-called “board of peace”, a body which he says will oversee the governance and reconstruction of Gaza.
With Trump serving as chair, the seven-strong board will also include US special envoy Steve Witkoff, World Bank President Ajay Banga, and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Aryeh Lightstone and Josh Gruenbaum have been named as senior advisers to oversee “day-to-day strategy and operations”, with Bulgarian former UN Middle East peace coordinator Nicholay Mladenov serving as the High Representative of Gaza.
Meanwhile, leaders of Egypt, Turkey, Argentina and Canada said they had received invitations to join the board. Egypt’s foreign minister Badr Abdelatty told reporters that they were “considering the matter”, while a senior aide to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he intended to accept the offer.
A spokesperson for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had been asked to become a “founding member” of the board. Argentine President Javier Milei wrote on X that it would be an “honour” to participate in the initiative.
Trump hailed the newly-formed body, which will steer the next phase of his 21-point-plan for Gaza, as the “greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, any place”.
The White House said in a statement that each board member will be responsible for specific tasks “critical to Gaza’s stabilisation and long-term success”, involving “governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding and capital mobilisation”.
The board will oversee the work of a “technocratic” committee, consisting of 15 Palestinians, led by Ali Shaath, a former Palestinian deputy minister for planning.
Israel has pushed back against the formation of the Palestinian committee, saying the move bypassed it entirely.
“The composition of the Gaza executive panel was not coordinated with Israel and is against its policy,” the office of Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on Saturday.
Netanyahu has instructed Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to raise Israel’s objections directly with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to the statement.
Trump has invited around 60 countries to join the Board of Peace, several sources told Haaretz.
A draft charter of the board, obtained by Haaretz, indicates that Trump aims to position the body as a rival to the United Nations, praising what it calls the “courage to depart from… institutions that have too often failed”.
Blair’s controversial appointment
Blair’s appointment is likely to prove contentious in the region due to his role in the 2003 US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.
After leaving office, Blair’s consultancy organisation, the Tony Blair Institute (TBI), has drawn widespread criticism for advising a raft of autocratic governments including Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
The institute denied reports that Blair advised Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in 2014 after the general ousted the country’s first democratically elected leader, Mohamed Morsi.
TBI has also received money from a financial fraudster linked with illegal Israeli settlements and an American Islamophobic network.
Blair also serves as an honorary patron of the UK branch of Israel’s Jewish National Fund (JNF), which has faced heavy criticism for its activities – including donating £1m ($1.3m) to what it described as “Israel’s largest militia” and erasing Palestine from its official maps.
TBI was more recently linked to a widely condemned post-war plan for Gaza which envisioned the transformation of the Strip into a commercial hub and the forced displacement of Palestinians from the war-ravaged enclave.
Conceding that Blair’s inclusion on the executive board is controversial, Trump said in October: “I’ve always liked Tony, but I want to find out that he’s an acceptable choice to everybody.”
In a statement sent to AFP, Blair said: “I thank President Trump for his leadership in establishing the Board of Peace and am honoured to be appointed to its Executive Board.”
The launch of the peace plan’s second phase comes as Israel continues to heavily restrict the flow of aid into Gaza, where wintry conditions are seeing rising deaths of Palestinians from exposure.
Over the past two months, repeated rainstorms have battered the Strip, destroying thousands of tents. Dozens of structurally weakened buildings, damaged by earlier Israeli bombardments, have also collapsed on displaced people.
In recent weeks, at least 31 Palestinians have died from winter-related causes, including 19 children, many from hypothermia.
Progress to the second phase of the deal has also been complicated by continued Israeli attacks on the besieged territory, with 450 Palestinians killed since the ceasefire came into effect in October.
Israel has killed more than 71,400 Palestinians and wounded at least 171,000 others since 7 October 2023, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
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Sources: Middle East Eye
