Reuters

 

 

US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace has announced a $2.45bn (£1.85bn) Gaza recovery plan at a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

The funding will be spread across 66 programmes over six months, and directed at housing, diesel generation and waste removal, among other needs.

But the board admitted substantial donations were still needed, with $18bn pledged but only $280m handed over so far. It estimates full recovery and reconstruction will require about $71bn over the next decade.

The board also did not set out a date for the start of reconstruction in Gaza, where Trump's plan to end the war has largely stalled almost a year after Israel and Hamas agreed a ceasefire.

The disarmament of Hamas has been a key sticking point.

The Palestinian group has agreed to give up its weapons in exchange for a phased Israeli troop withdrawal from the 60% of Gaza currently occupied. But Israel has insisted that it must fully disarm before any pullout.

Violence has also continued in Gaza amid the deadlock, with near-daily Israeli strikes, and living conditions for the 2.1 million people living there remain dire.

Jared Kushner, a Gaza Executive Board member and Trump's son-in-law, conceded that the Gaza Recovery Programme faced "different delays on different things, for whatever reason".

"The goal of today was really just to show you that we're really fully committed to doing it," he told the meeting of board members and stakeholders.

He was joined in New York by US envoy Steve Witkoff, who said that "real progress" had been made over the past year.

"All of the hostages are home. There is a ceasefire, imperfect as it may be, but it still exists. Humanitarian efforts have achieved historic results, with billions of dollars donated and pledged to meet urgent needs and support the long work of recovery," Witkoff added.

In addition to fundraising, the plan faces significant challenges including how to ensure security for those operating in Gaza, overhaul internal governance and find consensus between Israeli and Palestinian officials.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a separate news conference on Wednesday that "a number of countries have stepped forward and pledged financial assistance" and the board was "looking for more that will participate in that".

Michael Eisenberg, an Israeli-American Board of Peace member, told the BBC's Newshour programme what the next steps were likely to be.

"Because it's a war zone, you need to remove unexploded ordnance. And then there are still hundreds of kilometres of tunnels underneath Gaza which need to be destroyed as well.

"Once that's all done, Gazans can get to rebuilding again: whether it's housing, or better sanitation, or other things," Eisenberg said.

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In August, the Board of Peace's high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, criticised Israel's continuing air strikes on Gaza, as well as the actions of Hamas.

Mladenov warned that a collapse of last October's ceasefire would be "a point of no return" for the region.

At least 1,408 Palestinians, including more than 300 children, have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since the ceasefire began, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.

The Israeli military says five of its soldiers have been killed in combat since the ceasefire and one contractor was killed in an "operational accident".

Reconstruction has also yet to begin in Gaza, where an estimated 80% of all structures have been destroyed or damaged during the war, leaving more than 60 million tonnes of rubble piled up.

More than 1.9 million people - about 90% of the territory's population - have been displaced, many of them multiple times, and 1.2 million of them are currently living in tents or makeshift shelters, with limited access to clean water and sanitation services, according to the UN.

The Board of Peace was created as part of Donald Trump's 20-point Gaza peace plan, which he unveiled alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September last year.

Hamas agreed to return all 48 remaining hostages being held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and Gaza detainees, and to the idea of handing over the governance of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats.

In July, Hamas said it had accepted a disarmament plan for Gaza which would see it lay down its arms, provided Israel ends "all forms of aggression" and withdraws its forces from Gaza.

But that was later rejected by Netanyahu, who said the military would stay in Gaza until Hamas was "genuinely" disarmed.

The Board of Peace was originally thought to be an international organisation intended to bring peace to Gaza, but later expanded to include conflicts worldwide.

The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 73,920 people have been killed, according to the territory's health ministry.

 

SOURCE/AUTHOR : BBC NEWS/Rachel Flynn