The Board of Peace is a failed body and should be abandoned
The Palestinian issue should be returned to the UN framework and anchored again in international law. On Thursday, United States President Donald Trump announced that
The Palestinian issue should be returned to the UN framework and anchored again in international law. On Thursday, United States President Donald Trump announced that Hamas had agreed to disarm and move to the next phase of the ceasefire deal in Gaza. The announcement was received positively by various regional actors while the US president characterised it as a āhistoric agreementā. The problem is that the disarmament is unlikely to take place. That is because Hamas has made clear that it has conditioned relinquishing its weapons on Israel abiding by its obligations under the agreement, which the latter has failed to do since it was reached in October. The Board of Peace, the body tasked with overseeing the ceasefire and Gazaās reconstruction, has done nothing to pressure it into compliance. This is one of the many failures of this body, which has very little to show for its si month existence. It lacks the power, financing, enforcement mechanisms and legal standing within the international legal system to fulfil its self-declared mandate. Rather than creating a pathway towards de-escalation, it has created an appearance of diplomatic progress that provides political cover for the continuation of the Israeli genocide in Gaza. The only way to move forward is for the board to be abandoned and responsibility returned to the United Nations. Achieving nothing The Board of Peace was established under Article 9 of Trumpās 20-point peace plan for Gaza, announced in October. Its mandate is to oversee a temporary Palestinian technocratic body that would manage Gaza and an International Stabilization Force (ISF) of multinational peacekeepers. In theory, the board would supervise Gazaās reconstruction and Israelās gradual withdrawal. In practice, it has not achieved any progress on either of these processes. Despite lofty promises from the Trump administration about transforming Gaza into a modern urban landscape, there has been no movement in that direction. The majority of the population still lives in abhorrent conditions in tents.
Last month, the board scaled down the reconstruction plan to a pilot project near Rafah, close to the Egyptian border, which is under the control of the Palestinians who collaborate with Israel. Israel would vet the Palestinians who are allowed to stay in that development. Worse still, the board is trying to give itself the right to confiscate Palestinian properties or use them āfree of chargeā. This signals its willingness to serve as a facade for continuing Israeli theft of Palestinian land. An Israeli withdrawal ā the other major process the board should oversee ā has been all but forgotten. Instead, Israel has continued to kill Palestinians in regular bombardments and encroach on more and more Palestinian land. Since the ceasefire began in October, Israel has killed more than 1,100 Palestinian civilians. It has continued to carry out demolitions of Palestinian homes and to move its āYellow Lineā, expanding its control to about 70 percent of Gazaās territory, up from 53 percent at the start of the ceasefire. The Board of Peace has taken no action in response to these Israeli colonial practices and has not issued any public statements condemning them. Meanwhile, the board has framed Palestinians as responsible for the lack of progress. Its high representative, Nickolay Mladenov, has described Hamas as the āprincipal obstacleā to implementing the ceasefire despite no recorded Palestinian attacks since its beginning. This one-sided scrutiny reveals the boardās function: not peacemaking but providing cover for the ongoing occupation. The Board of Peace has also maintained arrangements that allow Israel to control the flow of aid into Gaza. Although Trumpās plan stipulates that neither Hamas nor Israel should interfere with the entry and distribution of assistance, the Israeli military continues to determine both the quantity and type of assistance allowed into the Gaza Strip. Major European countries and China have declined to join the Board of Peace.
The BriefWire