Trump asks Turkiye’s Erdogan, Egypt’s el-Sisi to hitch Gaza ‘board of peace’ | Israel-Palestine battle News | USAEMALL.com

United States President Donald Trump has invited the leaders of Egypt and Turkiye to join his “board of peace” to oversee the post-war transition in Gaza, according to authorities in Ankara and Cairo.

The board is expected to supervise the temporary governance of the Gaza Strip under the US president’s plan to end Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged territory.

A Turkish presidential spokesperson posted on social media on Saturday that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received an invitation from Trump a day earlier to “become a founding member” of the board.

Separately, Egypt’s foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, said at a news conference on Saturday that the country was reviewing a separate invitation from Trump to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to join the board.

The White House on Friday announced several members of a “founding executive board” for Gaza, which has been reeling from more than two years of Israeli military bombardment and restrictions on humanitarian aid deliveries.

That executive board – to be chaired by Trump – includes US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

The announcements are part of Trump’s proposal to end Israel’s war on Gaza that was unveiled in October. The plan says a Palestinian technocratic body will be overseen by international actors who will supervise Gaza’s governance for a transitional period.

Many rights experts and advocates have said that Trump overseeing a board to supervise a foreign territory’s governance resembled a colonial structure, while the prospect of Blair’s involvement was criticised last year due to his role in the Iraq war and the history of British imperialism in the Middle East.

Reporting from Gaza City on Saturday, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said Palestinians in the war-ravaged territory have noted that many of the people named to the “board of peace” have been major supporters of Israel and its war on the Gaza Strip.

He said the major concern among Palestinians in Gaza is that the board members could prioritise “dominance [and] control over justice, reconstruction and the self-determination of the Palestinian people”.

Mahmoud added that, if Palestinians had a voice on the board, they would demand safety first and foremost. “They want to live their day without the sounds of drones … without sudden air strikes and forced displacement,” he said.

The White House did not detail the responsibilities of each member of the “founding executive board”. It said more members will be announced over the coming weeks.

The board will also include private equity executive and billionaire Marc Rowan, World Bank President Ajay Banga and Robert Gabriel, a Trump adviser, the White House said, adding that Nickolay Mladenov, a former United Nations Middle East envoy, will be the high representative for Gaza.

Army Major-General Jasper Jeffers, a US special operations commander, was appointed commander of the international stabilisation force, the White House said.

Israel raises opposition

A UN Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorised the board and countries working with it to establish that force in Gaza.

The White House also named an 11-member “Gaza executive board” that will include Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Sigrid Kaag, the United Arab Emirates minister for international cooperation, Reem al-Hashimy, and Israeli-Cypriot billionaire Yakir Gabay, along with some members of the executive board.

This additional board will support Mladenov’s office and the Palestinian technocratic body, whose details were announced this week, the White House said.

On Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised opposition to the “Gaza executive board”, saying its composition “was not coordinated with Israel and runs contrary to its policy”.

“The Prime Minister has instructed the Foreign Affairs Minister to contact the US Secretary of State on this matter,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement shared on social media.

The statement did not specify what exactly it opposed about the board’s makeup.

Israeli media outlets previously reported that Netanyahu’s government was staunchly opposed to any potential Turkish participation in the international force expected to be deployed to Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, also slammed the Trump administration’s plans in Gaza, saying Palestinians should be forced out of the enclave in line with Trump’s “original plan”.

The US president previously said he wanted Palestinians to leave Gaza so that the territory could be transformed into the “Riviera of the Middle East” – a push observers said would amount to ethnic cleansing.

Ben-Gvir called on Netanyahu to order the Israeli military “to return to war with tremendous force in the Strip, in order to achieve the main goal of the war: the destruction of Hamas”.

A tenuous ceasefire has been in effect in Gaza since October, but Israel has repeatedly breached the truce, killing more than 450 Palestinians, including more than 100 children. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed in attacks by Palestinian armed groups.

At least 71,548 people have been killed and 171,353 wounded by Israeli forces across Gaza since October 2023.

A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks, and about 200 were taken captive.

Multiple rights experts, scholars and a UN inquiry say Israel’s war on Gaza amounts to genocide.