The White House on 16 January unveiled a US-led “Gaza Peace Committee” and an associated executive committee to oversee reconstruction and stability in the Strip, placing former President Donald Trump at its head and announcing a parallel “international stabilization force” command. Washington said the new architecture would support a Palestinian technical-operators committee and a senior Gaza representative, but the list of names and the unilateral manner of publication immediately provoked political pushback on both sides.
Israel’s prime ministerial office condemned the announcement on 17 January, saying the roster for the Gaza executive committee was released without coordination and ran counter to Israeli policy. Jerusalem appears particularly exercised by the inclusion of Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan and unnamed Qatari officials — Ankara and Doha have been outspoken critics of Israel’s Gaza campaign — and Israel’s hard-right security minister publicly dismissed the need for an external supervisory committee for reconstruction.
Palestinian responses were also fractious. The militant group Islamic Jihad denounced the committee as effectively engineered to suit Israeli interests and as evidence of prejudged, hostile intent in implementing any agreement. By contrast, the chair of the Palestinian technical-operators committee, Ali Shaat, thanked Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas for support and framed the team as an entirely Palestinian, technocratic body chosen to restore daily life in Gaza and to prevent a return to war.
Washington’s list, as released, included several controversial figures: in addition to Trump as chair it named Marco Rubio in a senior US role, former British prime minister Tony Blair, a U.S. Middle East specialist identified as Witkof, and Jared Kushner, among others, and said invitations had gone to regional leaders including Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as well as Argentina’s Javier Milei and Canada’s prime minister. The inclusion of high-profile and politically charged actors underscores the degree to which the initiative is as much about influence over the post-conflict political order as it is about quick reconstruction or humanitarian relief.
The immediate diplomatic fallout illustrates how reconstruction and governance in Gaza will be fought over as intensely as military operations have been. If major stakeholders — Israel, Palestinian factions, regional powers and the international institutions accustomed to handling relief and reconstruction — do not buy into a single coordinating framework, delivery of aid and the rebuilding of infrastructure will be slowed and politicised, creating space for spoilers and hardliners. The controversy also reveals a deeper problem for Washington: any American attempt to broker or lead Gaza’s recovery will be viewed through a partisan and geopolitical lens, especially when its own former president is named as chair of the effort.