US President Donald Trump’s plan for postwar Gaza continued to move forward despite the US-Israel war with Iran, with the Board of Peace (BoP) already issuing tenders for projects on the ground, two sources close to the initiative told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
According to the sources, the initiative has moved beyond diplomatic planning and into early implementation. The BoP is already operating as an official entity, they said, and has opened a bank account with an initial budget of between $60 million and $70 million. The funding is allegedly not from the US or from Israel, but from other entities in the region.
The sources said the BoP had already issued tenders for three projects: refugee villages in the Gaza Strip, a base for international troops expected to serve there, and a management headquarters in Israel.
One of the sources said that the process was expected to accelerate in the coming weeks and now stood a higher chance of success.
A senior Israeli official told the Post that the weakening of Iran has become a major factor in advancing the initiative.
“The geopolitical powers in the Middle East are changing, and the Israel-US alliance will enable forcing Hamas into disarming more than it would prior,” the official said.
Another source pointed to Hamas’s conduct since the outbreak of the current war, saying that despite earlier assumptions, the group had not joined the attack on Israel with missile fire.
Five countries agree to send troops to Gaza as part of ISF, sources confirm
The sources also said that five countries had formally agreed to send troops to Gaza as part of the International Stabilization Force (ISF), a multinational force under Trump’s postwar framework. The force is intended to help secure the territory, support reconstruction, assist Palestinian police, and eventually enable an Israeli withdrawal, with a projected size of about 20,000 troops.
The BoP believes the war with Iran could ultimately accelerate progress on one of the initiative’s most sensitive issues – Hamas disarmament – by weakening Tehran’s regional influence and its long-standing support for the terror group, one source said.
A Reuters report published on Monday said that the talks had been put on hold since last week, when the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran. Citing three sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations, Reuters reported that the pause threatened to stall implementation of Trump’s broader Middle East initiative.
However, one source cited by Reuters described the delay as brief and technical, caused mainly by flight disruptions that prevented mediators and representatives from traveling around the region. Cairo has frequently hosted talks.
A Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters that Hamas had been expected to hold talks with Egyptian, Qatari, and Turkish mediators on the day the war erupted, but the meeting was canceled, and no new date had been set.
A Hamas official also told Reuters that talks on Trump’s Gaza plan had been frozen for the time being, but declined to elaborate. According to Reuters, Israel’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.