Board: Hamas refusal to disarm is main barrier to rebuilding

Board of Peace urges countries that promised funds for Gaza to pay up

Document obtained by ToI acknowledges ‘gap’ between the $17B pledged to reconstruct Strip and actual donations; Smotrich nixes US request to transfer withheld PA funds to US-led body

The Board of Peace is warning that efforts to rebuild the war-ravaged Gaza Strip are in jeopardy if countries do not follow through on their financial pledges to the US-led body tasked with overseeing the postwar management of the enclave.

Over half a dozen countries announced major donations to the Board of Peace during a February fundraising conference in Washington. The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait each pledged at least $1 billion, with US President Donald Trump announcing Washington would tack on another $10 billion.

But as of this week, just around one percent of the $17 billion that the US said was pledged to the Board of Peace has actually been transferred, according to two officials familiar with the matter.

After denying money problems last month, the Board of Peace acknowledged them in a May 15 report it submitted to the UN Security Council, which was obtained by The Times of Israel.

“The Board of Peace underscores that the gap between commitment and disbursement must be closed with urgency. Funds committed but not yet disbursed represent the difference between a framework that exists on paper and one that delivers on the ground for the people of Gaza,” the report states. Parts of the letter were first published by Reuters.

The fundraising call in the letter also includes a separate Gaza relief initiative headed by the UN, which “estimates total recovery and reconstruction needs in Gaza at $71.4 billion over the next decade.”

To try and close the fundraising gap, the US asked Israel to allow a portion of the $5 billion in Palestinian tax revenues that Jerusalem is withholding from the Palestinian Authority to be transferred instead to the Board of Peace.

A Palestinian official told The Times of Israel that the PA offered to donate to the Board of Peace, but is conditioning its contribution on Israel releasing the clearance revenues, which Jerusalem is supposed to collect on Ramallah’s behalf and transfer to the PA each month. Smotrich has refused to sign off on the transfers so for over a year, a violation of the Oslo Accords that has risked collapsing the PA entirely as the tax funds make up the majority of its budget.

The Palestinian official said Ramallah is hoping the US could coax Israel to release a significant portion of the withheld funds that would then be handed over to the Board of Peace, while an identical portion would be transferred to the PA.

The US raised the idea with Israel, but Smotrich — who has advocated for the PA’s collapse — rejected it, arguing that it could allow Ramallah to gain a foothold in Gaza, his office told The Times of Israel, confirming a report on the Ynet news site.

The UAE is one of the very few countries to transfer at least a portion of the funds it pledged, recently sending the Board of Peace $100 million to cover much of the cost of training a new Gaza police force, a US official and a Middle Eastern diplomat told The Times of Israel last week.

While tens of thousands of Palestinians applied join the force, and the Board of Peace has made progress vetting candidates, they have yet to depart Egypt for training, in part owing to the lack of assurance from Israel that those who leave Gaza will be allowed to return, two Arab diplomats told The Times of Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.

In addition to funding concerns, the Board of Peace report updated the Security Council on the progress it has made in implementing Trump’s 20-point plan for ending the Gaza war.

While Netanyahu publicly accepted the plan in September, the actual document that Israel and Hamas signed to end the war a month later only pertained to Israel’s initial pull-back from parts of Gaza, a ceasefire, a hostage-prisoner swap and humanitarian aid provisions.

While the 20-point plan also includes provisions pertaining to the reconstruction of Gaza and Hamas’s disarmament, the Gaza terror group has yet to agree to that second phase, and talks between the Gaza ceasefire’s mediators — the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey — and Hamas have repeatedly stalled over the past four months.

“At this stage, the principal obstacle to full implementation (of the 20-point plan) remains Hamas’s refusal to accept verified decommissioning, relinquish coercive control, and permit a genuine civilian transition in Gaza,” says the Board of Peace update to the Security Council.

Pushing back on calls to disarm, Hamas has argued that Israel should first be held to the terms of the first phase, saying it has repeatedly violated clauses pertaining to strikes on its side of the armistice line, humanitarian aid benchmarks and the operation of the Rafah Crossing.

The Board of Peace report acknowledged those violations, but did not call out Israel by name as it did Hamas.

“Violations continue to occur on a near-daily basis, some of which are serious, and their human consequences — civilians killed, families living in fear, and continued impediments to humanitarian access — cannot be minimized. The Board of Peace and the guarantors have actively engaged all parties to reduce violations and ensure the protection of civilians,” the letter to the Security Council states.

The Board of Peace’s top envoys revealed in a letter obtained by The Times of Israel earlier this month that they do not intend to hold Israel to the terms of the 20-point plan if Hamas does not accept the board’s framework for the Islamist group to disarm.

“Failure by Hamas to accept the framework within a reasonable timeframe, as determined by the Board of Peace and after consultation with the parties, shall render such commitments null and void,” Board of Peace Gaza envoy Nickolay Mladenov and senior US official Aryeh Lightstone wrote in a letter to the head of the Palestinian technocratic government that is meant to replace Hamas in Gaza.

The May 15 Board of Peace report was submitted to the Security Council ahead of Mladenov’s scheduled briefing to the body on Thursday, though with little progress to report, he may not end up traveling to UN headquarters in New York, a source familiar with the matter said.