Trump ‘to ask countries in Gaza Board of Peace to pay $1bn to keep membership’

Countries on Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” for Gaza will be asked to contribute $1bn to keep their membership for more than three years, according to reports.

“Each Member State shall serve a term of no more than three years from this Charter’s entry into force, subject to renewal by the Chairman,” a draft document first reported by Bloomberg shows.

It adds that the three-year term “shall not apply to Member States that contribute more than USD $1,000,000,000 in cash funds to the Board of Peace within the first year of the Charter”.

According to the draft, Mr Trump would serve as the board’s chair and decide on who is invited to be a member. While decisions would be taken by a majority, with each member state present getting one vote, all decisions would be subject to the chair’s approval.

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The draft also reportedly suggests that Mr Trump would control the money himself, and that it would allegedly go towards rebuilding Gaza.

The board is described as “an international organisation that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict”.

The board would become official once three member states agree to the charter. They would meet at least once a year, and “at such additional times and locations as the Chairman deems appropriate”.

The chair would also approve the agenda for meetings.

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“The Chairman shall at all times designate a successor for the role of Chairman,” the charter reportedly says.

Earlier this week, Sir Tony Blair announced he had been asked to be on the “Board of Peace”, which also includes US secretary of state Marco Rubio and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

In a statement, Sir Tony said Mr Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza was an “extraordinary achievement” and that implementing it will take “enormous commitment and hard work”.

The former Labour leader, Mr Rubio and Mr Kushner are joined on the board by World Bank president Ajay Banga, Marc Rowan, Robert Gabriel and the US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.

At this point, no Palestinians have been invited to sit on the board, though additional Executive Board and Gaza Executive Board members will be announced over the coming weeks.

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Several world leaders have also reportedly been invited to become members, including Argentina’s president Javier Milei and Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney.

The former UK prime minister’s inclusion on the list of board members may be controversial as he remains a divisive figure in the Middle East due to his role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

He later became a representative of the Quartet, a group seeking peace between Israel and the Palestinians made up of the US, EU, Russia and the United Nations, but stepped down after he was criticised for being too close to Israel.

Despite Mr Trump’s claim of progress in securing a lasting peace agreement in Gaza, Israel on Saturday threw the future of the deal into doubt after expressing opposition to the membership of the board.

The Israeli government said that the board’s executive committee “was not coordinated with Israel and is contrary to its policy”, and that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given instructions to the foreign ministry to contact Mr Rubio over the matter.