The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: \u201cThe announcement regarding the composition of the Gaza Executive Board, which is subordinate to the Board of Peace, was not co-ordinated 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The moves came after the Palestinian committee of technocrats tasked with governing Gaza under the oversight of the Board of Peace held its first meeting in Cairo, attended by Kushner.<\/p>\n
Worldwide invites<\/p>\n
In Canada, a senior aide to Prime Minister Mark Carney said he intended to accept Trump\u2019s invitation, while in Turkey, a spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had been asked to become a \u201cfounding member\u201d of the board.<\/p>\n
Egypt\u2019s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said Cairo was \u201cstudying\u201d a request for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to join.<\/p>\n
Sharing an image of the invitation letter, Argentine President Javier Milei wrote on X that it would be an honour to participate in the initiative.<\/p>\n
In a statement sent to AFP, Blair said: \u201cI thank President Trump for his leadership in establishing the Board of Peace and am honoured to be appointed to its Executive Board\u201d.<\/p>\n
Blair is a controversial figure in the Middle East because of his role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. <\/p>\n
Trump himself said last year that he wanted to make sure Blair was an \u201cacceptable choice to everybody\u201d.<\/p>\n
Blair spent years focused on the Israeli-Palestinian issue as a representative of the \u201cMiddle East Quartet\u201d \u2013 the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia \u2013 after leaving Downing Street in 2007.<\/p>\n
The White House said the Board of Peace will take on issues such as \u201cgovernance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding and capital mobilisation\u201d.<\/p>\n
The other members of the board so far are World Bank President Ajay Banga, an Indian-born American businessman; billionaire US financier Marc Rowan; and Robert Gabriel, a loyal Trump aide who serves on the US National Security Council.<\/p>\n
The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad criticised the composition of the Board of Peace, saying it served Israel\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n
The board \u201ccame in accordance with Israeli criteria and to serve the interests of the occupation\u201d, the group said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Israeli strikes<\/p>\n
Washington has said the Gaza plan had gone on to a second phase \u2013 from implementing the ceasefire to disarming Hamas militants, whose October 2023 attack on Israel prompted the massive Israeli offensive.<\/p>\n
Trump named US Major-General Jasper Jeffers to head the International Stabilisation Force, which will be tasked with providing security in Gaza and training a new police force to succeed Hamas.<\/p>\n
Jeffers, from special operations in US Central Command, in late 2024 was put in charge of monitoring a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, which has continued periodic strikes aimed at Hezbollah militants.<\/p>\n
Gaza native and former Palestinian Authority deputy minister Ali Shaath was earlier tapped to head the governing committee.<\/p>\n
Trump, a real estate developer, has previously mused about turning devastated Gaza into a Riviera-style area of resorts, although he has backed away from calls to forcibly displace the population.<\/p>\n
-Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: \u201cThe announcement regarding the composition of the Gaza Executive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2372,2178,2082,16945,8559,42,5873,15143,43,85460,61177,1118,18442,140781,21485,12253,2892,140780,2572,3048,9939,103847,1361,61,40,38,41,39,2179,19096,8238,9938,5977,1533],"class_list":["post-238807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-board","tag-donald","tag-for","tag-gaza","tag-governance","tag-headlines","tag-israel","tag-lineup","tag-news","tag-objected","tag-objects","tag-of","tag-operate","tag-oversees","tag-palestinian","tag-panel","tag-peace","tag-postwar","tag-president","tag-said","tag-states","tag-territory","tag-that","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trump","tag-trumps","tag-under","tag-united","tag-which","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}