Trump’s “Board of Peace” official Gaza reconstruction fund receives no money

Trump’s Board of Peace for Gaza has raised no money into its official World Bank fund four months after launch, multibillion-dollar pledges, the Financial Times reported. Instead, donors have sent limited contributions to a private JPMorgan account that is not subject to the same independent oversight, with none of the promised US support being deployed for rebuilding on the ground yet.

Trump’s 'Board of Peace' fund has no money for Gaza: Report Submitted by MEE staff on Wed, 05/27/2026 - 19:13 A senior US official travelled to Saudi Arabia in April in an unsuccessful attempt to solicit funding from Saudi Arabia, MEE revealed US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio walk to board Air Force One before departing from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, on 20 March 2026 (Saul Loeb/AFP) Off The coffers of US President Donald Trump’s "Board of Peace" are empty and the organisation is stuck in a legal and political limbo, The Financial Times reported on Wednesday. The report follows a Middle East Eye exclusive that revealed a senior Trump administration official travelled to Saudi Arabia in April to ask the kingdom to follow through on its pledge of $1bn to the board. Aryeh Lightstone, one of the key US officials overseeing the US’s post-war planning for Gaza, met with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan to discuss the financial pledge Riyadh made, one Arab official and a US official told MEE. The so-called Board of Peace was established by Trump after the US brokered a ceasefire in October 2025 to end Israel’s war on Gaza. The United Nations, human rights experts and world leaders have recognised Israel’s war as a genocide. Over 72,800 Palestinians have been killed in the enclave. Despite Trump soliciting billion-dollar pledges from Gulf states and saying that the organisation would be one of the “most consequential” in the history of the world, the FT reported that four months after its establishment, the board’s financial fund set up by the World Bank has received no money. Instead, the FT reported, the board has received donations directly via its JPMorgan bank account. Under this mechanism, the board does not need to declare any of its funding to donors or its 25 member states. US lobbied Saudi Arabia to release funds for Gaza 'Board of Peace' amid cash crunch Read More » The existence of a separate account whose donors need not be disclosed will likely raise questions about who is funding the board and the US and international officials working with it. For example, as of late last year, Lightstone and other US advisors were living out of two luxury beachfront hotels in Tel Aviv, the Kempinski and the Hilton, as they drafted plans for Gaza. The US advisors have also drafted plans to turn Gaza into an AI tech hub and megacity, which critics have denounced as a bid to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. In an interview with The New York Times in November, Lightstone confirmed that one plan was to build housing for thousands of "screened" Palestinians to live behind the so-called yellow line in Gaza, which is occupied by Israeli troops. The board has received some small contributions to cover the salaries of workers. Morocco contributed $3m and the UAE $20m to establish the office of Nickolay Mladenov, and Palestinian technocrats working under him. Trump sits at the head of the board, but Mladenov, a former UN envoy and senior figure at the UAE’s Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy, is the “high representative” for post-war Gaza. The FT also reported that $100m in funding from the UAE, earmarked to train a Palestinian police force, is “frozen”. Bishara Bahbah, the Palestinian-American businessman who helped the US negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas, told the FT that the board’s financial situation was “really dismal”. He said the organisation had yet to start any work in Gaza because of a “lack of any funding to enable them to execute anything on the ground”. Israel's genocide in Gaza News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0

Trump’s 'Board of Peace' fund for Gaza received no money: Financial Times US President Donald Trump’s "Board of Peace" has “zero” cash in its official fund despite member countries pledging billions of dollars, according to a report by The Financial Times. The newspaper said the fund, administered by the World Bank and endorsed by the United Nations, has not received any donor money since the board was established in January, citing four unnamed sources “familiar with the matter”. “Zero dollars have been deposited,” one source told the FT. Trump created the board to support the reconstruction of Gaza following Israel’s genocide in the Palestinian territory, but drew criticism after extending invitations to figures including Russian President Vladimir Putin and countries with little involvement in traditional Middle East diplomacy. An EU-UN assessment released in April estimated that more than $71bn would be needed over the next decade to rebuild Gaza. According to the report, several major European countries have distanced themselves from the initiative, which includes ideological allies of Trump and smaller nations seeking closer ties with the US president.

Four months after its creation, the Gaza reconstruction fund of US President Donald Trump's so-called Board of Peace has yet to receive any of the billions of dollars pledged by donor countries. Israel has continued to carry out strikes across the devastated Palestinian territory despite a US-backed ceasefire, killing at least 910 people since the truce was signed.

The board is unambiguously led not just by the United States but by Trump personally, who holds the final say and can remain in charge past his presidency.

Trump first conceived of the board to rebuild Gaza, where Israel and Hamas agreed to a US-backed ceasefire in October in a bid to halt two years of devastating war. The post Trump’s Board of Peace fund is empty – Report appeared first on Vanguard News.