Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated his position clearly and repeatedly: there will be no reconstruction of Gaza until Hamas fully disarms. That statement — combined with his specification that Hamas must surrender approximately 60,000 automatic rifles — sets a red line that the Board of Peace must somehow navigate if reconstruction is to ever begin.
The red line has immediate consequences. It means that the $70 billion reconstruction effort estimated by the UN, EU, and World Bank cannot start in any meaningful way while Hamas retains its weapons. It means that the international investment envisioned by Kushner’s Davos slides cannot materialize. And it means that two million Palestinians living in devastated conditions face an indefinite wait while the disarmament dispute is resolved.
Hamas has not met Netanyahu’s conditions. It has made vague and conditional commitments to disarm, linking disarmament to the establishment of a Palestinian state and insisting its forces need weapons for law and order. Ideas under discussion — sealed weapons depots, surrendering heavy arms — fall short of the complete disarmament Israel demands.
Arab and Muslim members of the Board of Peace have argued that Israeli withdrawal is equally important to the ceasefire’s success, and have accused Israel of undermining the agreement through daily strikes. They are pushing the US to apply pressure on its ally — something the US has not publicly done.
Trump’s board must find a way to create movement on the disarmament-reconstruction deadlock without losing either Israel or its Arab members. That requires either persuading Netanyahu to accept a phased or conditional reconstruction beginning, or finding a disarmament framework that Hamas can accept and Israel can live with. Neither path is straightforward, and Thursday’s first meeting was just the beginning of that diplomatic challenge.