Trump's Board of Peace Unveils $2.45 Billion Gaza Reconstruction Plan

President Donald Trump's Board of Peace has announced a $2.45 billion plan to begin rebuilding Gaza, even as officials acknowledged that its future remains uncertain with Israel and Hamas still divided over the terms of a US-backed ceasefire.

The proposal, presented by board officials at an event held alongside the UN General Assembly in New York, comprises 66 programmes aimed at rehabilitating Gaza's infrastructure and economy after two years of full-scale Israeli military operations.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in New York that the effort was a long-term undertaking. "Obviously this is a longterm project. It's not something that can happen in six months. But at least gives people a hope," he said, adding that it offered a vision of what awaits if all parties do their part.

Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, who devised the plan while backing Israel's right to "finish the job" in Gaza if Hamas does not disarm, conceded that the proposal had run into "different delays on different things, for whatever reason." He described the effort as a matter of refining and sharpening the axe ahead of the moment to cut the tree, expressing hope that this would come "very, very soon."

Nearly a year after a ceasefire ended major fighting, reconstruction has yet to begin. Negotiators have failed to agree on conditions for Hamas to lay down its weapons and for Israel to withdraw its troops. Most buildings in the enclave have been destroyed, and more than two million residents are confined to roughly a third of Gaza's territory, living mostly in tents or crowded rooms among the ruins.

The board's plan estimates physical damage in Gaza at $35.2 billion and says full recovery and reconstruction will require about $71.4 billion over the next decade. It calls for repairing border crossings, restoring electricity and water infrastructure, deploying 25,000 portable solar power kits and permanently filling tunnels beneath sites needed for priority reconstruction projects.

Nickolay Mladenov, the board's lead Gaza envoy, said officials did not want Gaza to return to the way it was before the war. "We want to give people a new chance, and we want to make sure that both the Palestinians in Gaza and Israeli communities living across the border have a chance to put behind them this fear of violence that has driven their lives for so many years," he said.

The announcement came on a day when Israeli attacks on Gaza continued, including one that killed four people, among them a Hamas official.