US President Donald Trump said today that members of his newly formed Peace Council will pledge $5 billion for the reconstruction of war-torn Gaza, as well as sending thousands of troops for an international stabilization and police force in the territory.
These pledges will be officially announced when members of the Peace Council meet in Washington on Thursday for their first meeting, Trump said.
"The Peace Commission will prove to be the most significant international body in history, and I am honored to serve as its chairman," Trump said in a social media post.
He did not provide details on which member states had pledged contributions for the reconstruction of Gaza or which had announced they would provide personnel for the stabilization force.
But the Indonesian military said on Monday it expects up to 8.000 of its troops to be ready by the end of June for potential deployment to Gaza as part of a humanitarian and peacekeeping mission. It was the first firm commitment Trump has received so far, the AP reports.
Rebuilding the Palestinian territory will be a challenging task, writes AP. The United Nations, the World Bank and the European Union estimate that the reconstruction of the territory will cost 70 billion dollars. Few places in the Gaza Strip have remained unscathed from more than two years of Israeli bombardment.
The ceasefire agreement, brokered by the US on October 10 last year, envisages an armed international stabilization force to maintain security and ensure the disarmament of the Hamas militant group, a key Israeli demand. So far, few countries have expressed interest in participating in the proposed force.
The agreement is an attempt to end more than two years of war between Israel and Hamas. The heaviest fighting has stopped, but Israeli forces have carried out several airstrikes and frequently fire on Palestinians near areas held by the army.
It is not yet clear how many of the more than 20 members of the Peace Committee will participate in the body's first meeting next week. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who held talks with Trump at the White House last week, will not be at the meeting.
Trump's new committee was initially seen as a mechanism aimed at ending the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. But it has since been given a much broader mandate to address global crises and appears to be the latest US effort to bypass the United Nations as Trump seeks to reset the post-World War II international order.
Many leading American allies in Europe and elsewhere refused to join, suspecting it was an attempt to create a rival to the UN Security Council.
Trump also said that Thursday's meeting would be held at the U.S. Institute of Peace, which the State Department announced in December would be renamed the Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace.
The building is the subject of a lawsuit filed by former employees and officials of the nonprofit think tank when the Republican administration took over the building last year and fired most of the institute's staff.
Bonus video:
