US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace has announced a $2.45bn (£1.85bn) Gaza recovery plan at a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
The funding will be spread across 66 programmes over six months, and directed at housing, diesel generation and waste removal, among other needs.
But the board admitted substantial donations were still needed, with $18bn pledged but only $280m handed over so far. It estimates full recovery and reconstruction will require about $71bn over the next decade.
The board also did not set out a date for the start of reconstruction in Gaza, where Trump’s plan to end the war has largely stalled almost a year after Israel and Hamas agreed a ceasefire.
The disarmament of Hamas has been a key sticking point.
The Palestinian group has agreed to give up its weapons in exchange for a phased Israeli troop withdrawal from the 60% of Gaza currently occupied. But Israel has insisted that it must fully disarm before any pullout.
Violence has also continued in Gaza amid the deadlock, with near-daily Israeli strikes, and living conditions for the 2.1 million people living there remain dire.
Jared Kushner, a Gaza Executive Board member and Trump’s son-in-law, conceded that the Gaza Recovery Programme faced “different delays on different things, for whatever reason”.
“The goal of today was really just to show you that we’re really fully committed to doing it,” he told the meeting of board members and stakeholders.
He was joined in New York by US envoy Steve Witkoff, who said that “real progress” had been made over the past year.
“All of the hostages are home. There is a ceasefire, imperfect as it may be, but it still exists. Humanitarian efforts have achieved historic results, with billions of dollars donated and pledged to meet urgent needs and support the long work of recovery,” Witkoff added.
In addition to fundraising, the plan faces significant challenges including how to ensure security for those operating in Gaza, overhaul internal governance and find consensus between Israeli and Palestinian officials.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a separate news conference on Wednesday that “a number of countries have stepped forward and pledged financial assistance” and the board was “looking for more that will participate in that”.
Michael Eisenberg, an Israeli-American Board of Peace member, told the BBC’s Newshour programme what the next steps were likely to be.
“Because it’s a war zone, you need to remove unexploded ordnance. And then there are still hundreds of kilometres of tunnels underneath Gaza which need to be destroyed as well.
“Once that’s all done, Gazans can get to rebuilding again: whether it’s housing, or better sanitation, or other things,” Eisenberg said.
