Donald Trump’s Board of Peace is facing growing questions over funding and delivery after its official reconstruction fund reportedly received none of the $17bn pledged to support postwar Gaza, leaving major rebuilding and security plans stuck months after the body was launched.
The fund, set up through the World Bank to support the board’s work, has not received any money, according to a Financial Times report citing people familiar with the matter.
“Zero dollars have been deposited,” one source told the paper.
The revelation has raised concern over whether the board can deliver on its ambitious plan for Gaza, which includes reconstruction, a new security framework, a technocratic Palestinian administration and the disarmament of Hamas.
Although world leaders and donors had pledged billions of dollars to the initiative, the official fund remains empty. A Board of Peace official said contributors had chosen to use other channels instead of the World Bank mechanism.
“A number of options were established to receive funding,” the official said. “At this point, contributors have opted to use other options.”
According to the report, some donations have gone directly through a JPMorgan account linked to the board. However, that arrangement has also raised concerns because the account is not subject to the same reporting requirements as the World Bank fund. Unlike the World Bank structure, the JPMorgan route does not automatically require disclosure of its financial position to contributors and board members.
The board has said it will report its finances to its executive board at an appropriate time, but the lack of clear public accounting has added to uncertainty around the project.
So far, the money that has arrived appears limited compared with the scale of the crisis in Gaza. Morocco has reportedly contributed about $20m, which has helped fund the office of Nickolay Mladenov, the board’s high representative for postwar Gaza, as well as salaries for a Palestinian technocratic committee meant to help govern the territory.
The United Arab Emirates has also contributed $100m for the training of a new police force in Gaza. But that money is said to be frozen, and the training programme has not yet started.
The United States State Department has committed to redirect about $1.2bn in aid spending towards projects linked to the board’s agenda, but those funds have not yet been spent and are not being managed by the Board of Peace.
A senior congressional aide told the Financial Times that the State Department had made clear there was no intention for the board to control that money.
The department is also considering providing about $50m directly to the board. However, that funding has not yet been distributed. Officials have reportedly told Congress that the board will not be allowed to use US funds until it has the systems needed to receive and manage them properly.
The funding delays have slowed the practical implementation of Trump’s wider Gaza plan. The board’s spokesperson said tendering had begun for security and reconstruction work, but no contracts had been awarded.
“A lot of it is because we’re not operating in Gaza yet,” the spokesperson said, pointing to the unresolved issue of Hamas disarmament.
Trump’s plan was originally presented as a multi-stage roadmap. It called for Hamas to disarm, Israeli forces to withdraw from Gaza, a new Palestinian technocratic body to take over civilian administration, and large-scale reconstruction to begin.
But progress on those objectives has been limited.
Dr Bishara Bahbah, a Palestinian-American scholar who helped negotiate with Hamas for the Trump administration, said the technocratic committee had not started work inside Gaza because it lacked the money and tools needed to operate.
He warned that if the committee entered Gaza without resources, desperate residents would immediately turn to it for help.
“They know that if they go to Gaza, people are going to flood to them to ask for assistance, and they have no tools, no means,” he said.
The board has also argued that it cannot begin major work without a system to move goods and services into Gaza. Its spokesperson denied that the organisation was sitting on large sums of unused money, saying it could not award contracts for projects that could not yet be delivered.
At the same time, the political track remains deeply fragile.
Mladenov has blamed the stalled ceasefire on Hamas’s refusal to accept verified disarmament and give up control. In a briefing to the United Nations Security Council, he urged member states to pressure Hamas and other armed groups to submit to a supervised decommissioning process.
The Board of Peace said Hamas’s refusal to disarm remained the main obstacle to implementing the agreement.
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