Gaza Peace Council meets for the first time – Hamas disarmament remains unresolved

On Thursday, February 19, the “Peace Board”, established and chaired by US President Donald Trump, held its first meeting in the US capital Washington. The planned reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, which was severely devastated by Israel’s war against Hamas, was discussed. As Trump explained afterwards, seven billion USD (CHF 5.4 billion) had already been pledged for the planned reconstruction fund by the nations represented on the Peace Board: the United Arab Emirates, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Morocco, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. The USA, for its part, will inject a further USD 10 billion (CHF 7.75 billion). This was reported by the news agency Reuters. In a new report, the World Bank, EU and UN estimate the costs for the reconstruction of Gaza at USD 53 billion (CHF 41 billion).

It was reported that Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Albania had pledged to participate with “thousands of soldiers” in the planned International Stabilization Force (ISF). In the foreseeable future, the ISF is to replace the Israeli army IDF in monitoring peace in Gaza. Before this can happen, however, the terrorist organization Hamas must be completely disarmed. How and by whom this is to happen remains unclear. According to the Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov, who was commissioned by the Peace Council as “High Representative for Gaza” to implement the 20-point peace plan, Egypt, Turkey and Qatar have agreed on a plan for disarmament. This plan is to be presented to the terrorist groups in Gaza (Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad) in the near future. Hamas has always stated that it is not prepared to give up all its weapons. It has therefore long been assumed in Israel that the IDF will ultimately have to disarm the terrorist organizations in Gaza. Now that they no longer have any hostages from the massacre of October 7, 2023 as a bargaining chip, the Israeli army would have more room for maneuver than in the past.