PM’s office says it was left out of talks on makeup of executive committee, which includes senior officials from Turkey and Qatar who will report to Board of Peace panel of world leaders
Times of Israel
In a rare break with the administration of US President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Saturday that the White House’s recent unveiling of a key international oversight panel for Gaza was ‘not coordinated with Israel and contradicts its policy,’
Netanyahu appeared to be taking issue with the makeup of a new body called the executive board, which will include senior officials from Qatar and Turkey — two countries that have been highly critical of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza.
While it will technically operate beneath the Board of Peace — which is headed by Trump and made up of world leaders — the executive board will be more directly involved in overseeing the postwar management of Gaza, playing a critical role as opposed to the more symbolic Board of Peace.
Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the premier had instructed Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to raise Israeli opposition to the executive board’s makeup with his US counterpart, Marco Rubio.
Sa’ar has largely been kept away from direct involvement in Israel-US relations, which have run through Netanyahu’s office and his top advisers.
The White House unveiled the makeup of the executive board on Friday, with Turkey to be represented by its Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Qatar to be represented by its senior diplomat Ali Thawadi. They will be joined by Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad, UAE International Cooperation Minister Reem Al-Hashimy, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, US special envoy Steve Witkoff, top Trump aide Jared Kushner, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan, Israeli-Cypriot businessman Yakir Gabay, former UN humanitarian coordinator Sigrid Kaag, and former UN envoy to the Mideast Nickolay Mladenov.
Mladenov, who will effectively head the panel, was given the title of high representative for Gaza, and will act as the on-the-ground link between the Board of Peace and the panel of Palestinian technocrats running daily affairs in the Strip.
The White House has dubbed that latter body the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), and it will effectively be subordinate to the Board of Peace and the mid-tier executive board.
The 15-member NCAG is headed by former Palestinian Authority deputy planning minister Ali Shaath, and held its first meeting in Cairo with Mladenov on Saturday.
As for the Board of Peace, the panel of leaders has not yet been unveiled, but invitations to potential members went out on Friday. By Saturday, the leaders of Turkey, Canada and Argentina publicly confirmed receipt — a move that likely indicates their plans to accept the offer.
A source familiar with the matter said Israel did not aggressively push back against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s inclusion on the Board of Peace, recognizing that the more consequential panel is the executive board.
Jerusalem had sought to prevent the inclusion of a Turkish representative on the latter body, but apparently lost that battle in what demonstrated Ankara’s perceived utility in the eyes of Trump, who has repeatedly praised Erdogan — including in front of Netanyahu — and has hailed both Turkey and Qatar’s success in coaxing Hamas to accept his ceasefire deal in October.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he intended to accept Trump’s invitation, while in Turkey, a spokesman for Erdogan sufficed with confirming that he had been asked to become a ‘founding member’ of the board.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said Cairo was ‘studying’ a request for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to join the panel. And sharing an image of the invitation letter, Argentine President Javier Milei wrote on X that it would be ‘an honor’ to participate in the initiative.
Attached to the letter is the charter for the Board of Peace, which Haaretz revealed did not include the word Gaza. The charter indicates a desire for the body to at least partially replace the UN, emphasizing the need for ‘a more nimble and effective international peace-building body,’ adding that durable peace requires ‘the courage to depart from institutions that have too often failed.’
Earlier this month, The Times of Israel reported that the US wants the Board of Peace to be used to assist in the resolution of other conflicts around the globe as well.
The charter also states that the Board of Peace will work to ‘restore dependable and lawful governance and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict.’
‘Durable peace requires pragmatic judgement, common sense solutions and the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed,’ it says.
The US is aiming to hold the first Board of Peace meeting on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, officials familiar with the matter have told The Times of Israel.
While the charter speaks of the desire for involvement beyond Gaza, the Security Council resolution pertaining to the Board of Peace that was passed last month restricts its mandate to the Strip, and only until the end of 2027.
Joining Netanyahu in lashing out over the makeup of the various Gaza oversight panels on Saturday was both far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
‘I commend the prime minister for his important statement. The Gaza Strip does not need any ‘governing council’ to oversee its ‘rehabilitation’ — it needs to be cleared of Hamas terrorists, who must be eliminated, alongside the large-scale emigration, in accordance with President Trump’s original plan,’ wrote Ben Gvir on X, referring to a February 2025 proposal to permanently relocate Gaza’s entire population that Washington has since abandoned.
Ben Gvir called on Netanyahu to ‘order the IDF to prepare to return to the fighting in the Strip with overwhelming force, in order to achieve the central objective of the war: the destruction of Hamas.’