President Trump announced Sunday that members of his newly created Board of Peace have pledged $5 billion toward rebuilding Gaza, with thousands of personnel committed to international stabilization and police forces for the territory.
The announcement, made from West Palm Beach, Florida, sets the stage for the body's first meeting Thursday at the US Institute of Peace in Washington.
As reported by the NY Post, the $5 billion is a down payment on what the United Nations, World Bank, and European Union estimate will be a $70 billion reconstruction effort. Trump did not detail which member nations were making the pledges or which would contribute personnel to the stabilization force, but the commitment of real dollars before the board even formally convenes signals momentum that most international institutions spend years failing to generate.
The Board of Peace, which counts more than 20 member nations, emerged from the Oct. 10 US-brokered ceasefire deal. That agreement calls for an armed international stabilization force to maintain security and ensure the disarmament of Hamas — a key Israeli demand and a prerequisite for any durable peace in the territory.
Indonesia's military announced Sunday that up to 8,000 troops are expected to be ready by the end of June for potential deployment to Gaza as part of a humanitarian and peace mission. That's the first firm commitment of personnel from any nation — and it came the same day as Trump's funding announcement. The two developments together suggest a framework taking shape faster than the foreign policy establishment expected.
Trump framed the stakes in characteristically direct terms:
"The Board of Peace will prove to be the most consequential International Body in History, and it is my honor to serve as its Chairman."
Bold? Sure. But name the last time a multilateral body moved from concept to $5 billion in commitments this quickly. The United Nations has been "addressing" Gaza for decades. Trump's board hasn't held its first meeting yet and already has more concrete pledges than most international coalitions produce in a full term.
Thursday's meeting will take place at the US Institute of Peace, which the State Department recently renamed the "Donald J. Trump US Institute of Peace." The renaming, announced in December, followed the administration's decision to take control of the facility and dismiss almost all of the nonprofit think tank's staff. Former employees and executives brought litigation over the move.
The irony is rich. For years, the Institute of Peace functioned as one of Washington's many well-funded establishments that studied conflict without resolving any of it. Papers were published. Panels were convened. Gaza kept burning. Now the building will host a body that has already extracted financial commitments from sovereign nations before its inaugural session.
That's the difference between an institution designed to discuss peace and one designed to build it.
There are gaps worth noting. It is not clear how many of the board's more than 20 members will attend Thursday's meeting. Few countries have publicly expressed interest in contributing forces, and many of America's top allies in Europe and elsewhere have declined to join. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who held White House talks with Trump the previous week, is not expected to attend.
None of this is disqualifying. International coalitions rarely arrive fully formed. What matters at this stage is whether the structure exists to channel resources and whether key players are engaging. Indonesia's troop commitment answers one question. The $5 billion answers another. The rest is diplomacy — and diplomacy moves at the speed of leverage, not goodwill.
The more revealing fact is that the nations declining to participate are largely the same ones that have spent years demanding someone do something about Gaza while doing nothing themselves. Europe's absence from the Board of Peace isn't a rebuke of the effort. It's a confession.
After more than two years of war between Israel and Hamas, a ceasefire alone won't hold without an enforcement infrastructure. The Oct. 10 deal recognized this explicitly — it requires an armed international presence to keep order and disarm Hamas. Without that force, any ceasefire becomes a pause, not a resolution.
This is where the Board of Peace either becomes consequential or decorative. The $5 billion in reconstruction pledges and Indonesia's troop commitment suggest the former. Rebuilding Gaza requires not just money but security — contractors don't pour concrete in active war zones. A stabilization force creates the conditions under which reconstruction dollars actually produce results.
The timeline is aggressive. Indonesia's forces won't be ready until the end of June. Thursday's meeting will reveal how many other nations are willing to put personnel alongside their rhetoric. But the trajectory is forward, and the architecture is real.
The inaugural meeting will be the first public test of whether the Board of Peace is an operational coalition or an aspiration with a building. The questions that matter:
The answers will determine whether this body moves at the speed of crisis or the speed of bureaucracy. Given how quickly it's already produced tangible commitments, there's reason to expect the former.
International peace efforts fail when they're designed by committee and funded by promises. This one has a chairman, a venue, $5 billion, and 8,000 troops in the pipeline — before the first gavel drops.