US President Donald Trump has asked Russian leader Vladimir Putin to join his new Board of Peace, which is intended to supervise the next phase of the Gaza peace plan.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had received the invitation and the Kremlin is ‘studying the details’ and will seek clarity of ‘all the nuances’ in contacts with the US.
The Thai Foreign Ministry also said it had been invited and it was reviewing the details.
European Commission spokesman Olof Gill confirmed that Ursula von der Leyen, president of the commission, had received an invitation and would be speaking to other EU leaders about Gaza.
Mr Gill did not say whether the invitation had been accepted, but that the commission wants ‘to contribute to a comprehensive plan to end the Gaza conflict’.
It is unclear how many leaders have been invited to join the board, but a reference in the invitation letters that the body would ’embark on a bold new approach to resolving global conflict’ suggested it could act as a rival to the UN Security Council, the most powerful body of the global organisation created after the Second World War.
Israeli far-Right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich on Monday dismissed the Board of Peace as a raw deal for Israel and called for its dissolution.
‘It is time to explain to the president that his plan is bad for the state of Israel and to cancel it,’ Mr Smotrich said at a ceremony inaugurating the new Yatziv settlement in the occupied West Bank.
‘Gaza is ours, its future will affect our future more than anyone else’s. We will take responsibility for what happens there, impose military administration, and complete the mission.’
He even suggested that Israel could renew a full-scale offensive on Gaza to destroy Hamas if it does not abide by a ‘short ultimatum for real disarmament and exile’.
On Saturday, the office of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the formation of the committee was not co-ordinated with the Israeli government and ‘is contrary to its policy’.
The US is expected to announce its official list of members in the coming days, likely to be during the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
Board members will oversee an executive committee in charge of implementing the tough second phase of the Gaza peace plan which includes the deployment of an international security force, disarmament of Hamas and reconstruction of the war-devastated territory.
A billion-dollar (£740million) contribution secures permanent membership on the board with the money going to rebuild Gaza, according to a US source. A three-year appointment has no contribution requirement.
Details of how this will also work remain unclear. British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Monday that the UK is talking to allies about the Board of Peace.
Although the UK has not said whether Sir Keir has been formally invited to join, he said it is necessary to proceed with the Gaza peace plan’s second phase and his country has ‘indicated willingness, to play our part, and we will’.
Egypt’s top diplomat on Monday met the leader of the newly appointed committee of Palestinian technocrats who will be running Gaza’s day-to-day affairs during the second phase of the peace plan.
Foreign minister Badr Abdelatty met Ali Shaath, a Palestinian engineer and former official with the western-backed Palestinian Authority, who was named last week as chief commissioner of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.
Mr Abdelatty expressed the Egyptian government’s ‘complete support’ for the committee and affirmed its role in running Gaza’s daily affairs until the Palestinian Authority takes over the territory, a statement from the Egyptian ministry said after the meeting.
He underscored ‘the importance of preserving the unity of the Palestinian territories, ensuring geographical and administrative continuity between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank’.
Can Putin play a constructive role on Trump’s Gaza ‘Board of Peace’?
Comment now
The UN World Food Programme on Monday said it had ‘significantly expanded’ operations across Gaza 100 days into the ceasefire, reaching more than a million people each month with hot meals, bread bundles and food parcels, but it warned the situation remains ‘extremely fragile’.
It noted that malnutrition has been prevented for 200,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as children under five, while school snacks are reaching 235,000 children in 250 temporary schools.
The most recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification analysis in December indicated that 77 per cent of the population was facing crisis level food insecurity with more than 100,000 people experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian teenager in southern Gaza, hospital authorities said on Monday.
Hussein Tawfiq Abu Sabalah, 17, was shot in the Muwasi area of Rafah on Monday morning, according to Nasser Hospital. It was not immediately clear whether he crossed into or came close to an Israeli-controlled area.
More than 460 people have been killed by Israeli fire and their bodies taken to hospitals since the ceasefire came into effect, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
