Trump's Board of Peace to detail its plans for Gaza reconstruction
President Donald Trump's newly formed Board of Peace will detail its efforts in Gaza when it convenes its first meeting on Thursday in Washington.
Earlier this week, Trump announced the board's members had pledged more than $5 billion towards stabilizing and rebuilding the war-torn region.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that more than 20 countries would be represented at Thursday's meeting and a breakdown of the $5 billion in contributions would be provided.
Leavitt was pressed on many of the details about the reconstruction of Gaza and the $5 billion that the board is expected to oversee. She sidestepped on many of those details, saying that they would come during the meeting.
When asked who would be managing the board's financial decisions, Leavitt said Trump as chair of the organization would, but there would be layers of other members.
"There will be the Board of Peace, which the president is, of course, is the chairman of," she said. "But all of the member parties, I believe, will have votes on the funding. And then, of course, there is that technocratic layer, underneath the official Board of Peace with the member countries that will be making decisions as well."
A senior U.S. official told ABC News there will updates on the board's efforts, including humanitarian assistance for Gaza, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, and the International Stabilization Force. The updates will be delivered by a range of speakers, including Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who with Witkoff has negotiated for a peace agreement between Israel and Hamas, former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Walz, and Nickolay Mladenov, the former U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process who will serve as director-general of the board.
The meeting will take place at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, which was renamed from the U.S. Institute of Peace in December, after Trump's administration earlier in the year had gutted the institute by firing most of its board and staff as part of the Department of Government Efficiency's efforts to reduce U.S. foreign assistance.
More than two dozen countries have accepted Trump's invitation to join his Board of Peace, including Middle East powers like Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt. Notably, none of the U.S.'s major European allies have joined the board, with several expressing concerns that it is intended to supersede the United Nations.
Asked by reporters Monday if the Vatican would participate in the Board of Peace as an observer, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said it would not, saying there are "certain critical issues that should be resolved," Vatican News Service reported
“One concern is that at the international level it should above all be the UN that manages these crisis situations. This is one of the points on which we have insisted," Parolin said, according to VNS.
Leavitt called the Vatican's decision "unfortunate."
"This is a legitimate organization where there are tens of member countries from around the world. And we think that's an unfortunate decision,” Leavitt said.
In a post on his social media platform on Sunday, Trump said the board "will prove to be the most consequential International Body in History.".
Rebuilding Gaza is expected to take years and could cost upwards of $70 billion, according to an operational damage and needs assessment conducted last year by the United Nations, the European Union and the World Bank.
During last month's signing ceremony in Switzerland for the Board of Peace, Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and a real estate developer who helped negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, unveiled some of the board's plans to redevelop Gaza.
"Just last month, two dozen distinguished Founding Members joined me in Davos, Switzerland, to celebrate its official formation, and present a bold Vision for the Civilians in Gaza, and then, ultimately, far beyond Gaza -- WORLD PEACE!" Trump wrote in a social media post on Sunday.
The "master plan" laid out by Kushner includes hundreds of skyscrapers, new cities and a coastal tourism zone. Kushner said construction of the developments would take two or three years, and need an investment of at least $25 billion, but he said the primary focus of the next few months would be on sending humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Trump, in his post on Sunday, also called on Hamas to uphold its commitment to disarm -- a key issue in ensuring long-lasting peace and a major component of the U.S.-brokered peace plan for Gaza.
"Very importantly, Hamas must uphold its commitment to Full and Immediate Demilitarization," Trump wrote.
The senior U.S. official pushed back on claims that negotiations over the disarmament of Hamas had stalled in recent days.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” they said. "We are under no illusions on the challenges regarding demilitarization, but we have been encouraged by what the mediators have reported back.”
The meeting comes after Witkoff and Kushner led negotiations in Geneva with Iran over its nuclear enrichment program and with representatives from Russia and Ukraine to end Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to strike Iran if it does not agree to curb its nuclear program. A first round of talks between the U.S. and Iran took place in Oman earlier this month.
ABC News' Isabella Murray contributed to this report.
