Donald Trump and the Board of Peace: Ambition, Money and the Ruins of Gaza

Saturday 21 February 2026

In the theatre of post-war diplomacy — where money is pledged faster than rubble is cleared — United States President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace has set itself a task at once grand and perilous: the reconstruction of Gaza.

According to statements associated with the initiative, approximately USD 7 billion has been raised — a striking figure in a world fatigued by conflict and wary of Middle Eastern entanglements. The premise is simple enough. Gaza lies in ruins. If infrastructure can be rebuilt quickly — housing, hospitals, power grids, water treatment plants — then economic stability may follow, and political moderation might have a chance to breathe.

Yet simplicity evaporates upon contact with reality.

Gaza is not merely damaged. She is structurally shattered. Entire districts of Gaza City have been flattened; Rafah has been reduced to broken concrete and exposed steel; utilities have collapsed beneath the cumulative impact of bombardment and internal sabotage. Reconstruction is not a matter of repainting facades. It is closer to urban resurrection.

The first practical obstacle is physical. Rubble clearance alone will take years. Unexploded ordnance remains embedded in residential zones. Subterranean tunnel networks — constructed by Hamas beneath civilian neighbourhoods — complicate every engineering decision. To pour foundations safely, one must know what lies beneath. In Gaza, what lies beneath is often war.

The second obstacle is financial realism. Seven billion dollars is not negligible — but it is not transformative at the scale required. Estimates of full reconstruction costs run into the tens of billions. Housing stock must be rebuilt almost from scratch. Electricity generation capacity must be restored or replaced. Water desalination facilities must be reconstructed in an environment where materials are politically sensitive and dual-use accusations are constant.

Moreover money pledged is not money deployed. Donor fatigue is real. Funds can be delayed, diverted, or conditioned upon governance reforms that may not materialise. The Board of Peace may have secured commitments, but translating those commitments into bricks, steel and functioning institutions is a different enterprise.

The third obstacle is governance — and here the problem grows acute.

Hamas has signalled, repeatedly and unequivocally, its determination to reassert control over Gaza. For Hamas, reconstruction is not merely humanitarian — it is strategic. Control over aid flows equates to control over patronage networks. Control over patronage networks equates to political survival.

Any reconstruction authority that bypasses Hamas risks sabotage. Any reconstruction authority that includes Hamas risks international sanctions and the withdrawal of Western funding. This is the paradox at the centre of Trump’s initiative. Gaza cannot be rebuilt without a governing structure. Yet the identity of that structure determines whether international capital will remain engaged.

If Israel maintains a security perimeter, materials entering Gaza will be scrutinised for dual-use potential. Cement becomes controversial. Steel rods are viewed not only as structural supports but as potential reinforcement for new tunnels. Even telecommunications infrastructure becomes suspect in an environment where digital command and control have military implications.

Reconstruction, therefore, is not merely engineering — it is arms control by another name.

There is also the social dimension. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans are traumatised, unemployed and politically radicalised by years of blockade and war. Rebuilding apartments without rebuilding civic trust risks constructing vertical slums. If governance remains contested, then newly built housing may simply become future battlegrounds.

The Board of Peace, in its branding, evokes the post-1945 reconstruction of Europe — the Marshall Plan reborn in Middle Eastern form. Yet post-war Western Europe possessed stable states ready to receive funds. Gaza does not. She is politically fragmented, militarised and externally constrained.

President Trump’s political calculus is nonetheless understandable. A visible reconstruction effort offers diplomatic capital. It positions Washington as a benefactor rather than a belligerent. It may placate regional partners eager for stability. It appeals to a domestic audience that prefers transactional peace over prolonged war.

But transactional peace assumes that actors share incentives. Hamas’s strategic doctrine has historically prioritised resistance over economic growth. If its leadership calculates that renewed confrontation serves ideological legitimacy better than quiet reconstruction, then infrastructure will remain vulnerable.

There is also the regional factor. Gulf states may contribute funds but will hesitate to bankroll a territory that could once again fall under militant control. Egypt fears instability on her border. Israel fears rearmament. The Palestinian Authority seeks relevance but lacks coercive authority in Gaza. Every stakeholder sees risk.

Seven billion dollars, therefore, sits at the intersection of aspiration and structural constraint.

To succeed, reconstruction would require three conditions that have thus far proved elusive: a durable ceasefire, a credible non-Hamas governing mechanism accepted by the population, and stringent but workable security arrangements for materials and oversight. Absent these, money will trickle rather than flow. Projects will stall. Contractors will withdraw.

History offers caution. Post-conflict reconstruction fails not because money is insufficient, but because politics remains unresolved. Concrete cannot substitute for legitimacy.

President Trump’s Board of Peace may yet achieve partial successes — restoring electricity grids, rebuilding hospitals, stabilising key districts. Such incremental gains would not be trivial. They could reduce humanitarian suffering and create islands of normality.

But the deeper question endures. Can Gaza be rebuilt while the political struggle over her identity remains unsettled?

Until that struggle is resolved — until governance, security and economic incentives align — reconstruction risks becoming cyclical: build, arm, destroy, rebuild.

Money can clear rubble. It cannot by itself disarm ideology.

In the ruins of Gaza, ambition meets gravity. Whether seven billion dollars is the foundation of a new beginning or merely the preface to another round of destruction will depend less on fundraising triumphs in Washington than on political realities on the ground — realities that have thus far resisted every external design imposed upon her.