President Trump announced on Thursday, during the inaugural meeting of the US-led Board of Peace, that the new body will commit $17 billion to reconstructing Gaza.
Trump claimed that $10 billion of this fund would be provided by the US alone, with a number of key Arab nations making up the remaining $7 billion.
The money, he said, will be used to rebuild the Strip after Hamas has been deposed.
On top of the financial pledges, Trump announced that five countries had promised to contribute thousands of troops to the new International Stabilisation Force (ISF), which will manage security in the territory.
He named the participating nations as Indonesia, Morocco, Albania, Kosovo, and Kazakhstan.
Israel had previously objected to the ISF plan after reports emerged that it could see Turkish or Qatari troops stationed in the region.
Trump also emphasised that Hamas will be forced to disarm before the reconstruction process can begin, saying that the IDF will not withdraw further from Gaza until this happens.
In a lengthy speech at the board's first Washington summit, Trump said: "We will help Gaza. We will straighten it out. We’ll make it successful.
"The world is now waiting on Hamas… It’s the only thing that’s right now standing in the way."
The president's speech ended with the on-stage speakers playing his adopted theme song, the Village People's YMCA.
Gideon Sa'ar, Israel's foreign minister, also spoke at the event in front of a crowd that included several leaders of Arab states in the region.
He paid tribute to the 925 Israeli soldiers killed during the Gaza War and outlined what Israel hoped to see during the ceasefire process.
"All previous plans for Gaza failed because they never addressed the core issues: terror, hate, incitement, and indoctrination," he said, stressing that the disarmament plan must address "all weapons, terror infrastructure, underground tunnel network, and weapons production facilities".
However, just hours after Sa’ar finished speaking, it was one of his own coalition colleagues who was embroiled in a Gaza-related scandal as far-right MK Shimor Son Har-Melech accompanied a group of settler activists in illegally crossing into Gaza.
Civilian entry to the Strip has been heavily limited since the 2005 disengagement (during which settling there was banned) and completely prohibited since the beginning of the war in 2023.
But Har-Melech, a member of the Otzma Yehudit party led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, openly posted on social media about the journey, saying: “We were privileged, with thanks to the blessed God, to enter the Gaza Strip, together with the Nachala movement and dozens of families, women, men, and children.”
"Gaza will always be ours,” he added.
A spokesperson for Nachala later confirmed the group had crossed over and planted trees near the border in an attempt to re-establish Jewish settlements in the territory, quoting Har-Melech as saying: “In place of murderers, Jewish children will play.”
The IDF “strongly condemned” the stunt, saying such crossings endanger soldiers, but confirmed that troops did not prevent the group from carrying out its activities. Instead, it said the activists were under “continuous surveillance” as they crossed and were later detained and “safely returned” to Israel to be handed over to police.
Elsewhere in Gaza, Hamas is reportedly holding long-delayed elections to decide its new political leader.
The terror group has effectively been led by a committee of its political bureau since 2024.
The five-person panel was established in August 2024 when Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an Israeli strike, but was briefly subjugated by Yahya Sinwar before he too was killed by the IDF two months later.
It is made up of Khaled Mashaal, Khalil al-Hayya, Zaher Jabarin, Muhammad Darwish and one unnamed official.
Saudi media reported in December that an election would be held within weeks to decide a single leader, as has been the group's standard model for most of its existence.
But this was then delayed as the committee decided to prioritise getting to Phase Two of the ceasefire deal, which it has since achieved without being forced to disarm.
Now, though, BBC News, citing a "senior Palestinian official" has reported that voting is underway in Gaza to elect the new leader.
Mashaal and al-Hayya are understood to be the front-runners and the key dividing issues between them are reportedly the nature of Hamas' relationship with Iran and the pace of Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Al-Hayya is said to back closer links with Tehran and armed conflict with Israel until a full pullout, while Mashaal favours "negotiated compromises" and improved ties with the Gulf states.
The election will only decide the leader of Hamas' political wing, based in Qatar, whose relations with the military wing - Gaza's Al-Qassam Brigades - are said by some observers to be strained.
The Brigades, under the command of Izz al-Din al-Haddad, are believed to take a more hardline position on Israeli withdrawal and align more closely with al-Hayya's vision.
Previous peace negotiations are reported by some outlets to have stalled because the political leadership was unable to agree a ceasefire compromise with their counterparts in Gaza, rather than with the Israelis.
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