White House unveils Gaza Board of Peace executive board

Iain Marlow, Bloomberg News on Jan 16, 2026

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WASHINGTON — The White House has named the members of an executive panel as part of a so-called Board of Peace that’s intended implement President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the Gaza Strip.

In a statement on Friday afternoon, the White House said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, World Bank Group President Ajay Banga and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, among others, would sit on the executive board.

“Each executive board member will oversee a defined portfolio critical to Gaza’s stabilization and long-term success,” the White House said, pointing out that it would include “governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding, and capital mobilization.”

The executive board’s formation comes just days after the U.S. announced the “launch” of the second phase of the peace plan in the war-ravaged territory.

The second phase envisions “moving from ceasefire to demilitarization, technocratic governance, and reconstruction,” Witkoff wrote in a post on X Wednesday that threatened Hamas, the militant group that still controls almost half of Gaza, with “serious consequences” if it doesn’t “comply fully” with its obligations to disarm.

The announcement comes before a broader Board of Peace that is expected to be unveiled in the coming weeks, and as the U.S. tries to push Israel and Hamas into the next phase of Trump’s 20-point peace proposal that secured the ceasefire in Gaza.

That truce has been punctuated by fighting and airstrikes numerous times since it was reached in mid-October.

With Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union, still refusing to disarm as part of the U.S.-led process, the prospects for durable peace remain uncertain. The group, which is backed by Iran, has yet to return the remains of the last hostage taken during the October 2023 attacks that triggered the Israel-Hamas war, a critical part of the first phase of the Trump plan.

Trump announced the formation of the board on Thursday on social media, but didn’t say who was on it. “I can say with certainty that it is the Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, any place,” he said.

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