President Donald Trump announced Sunday that member states of his Board of Peace have collectively pledged more than $5 billion toward humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in Gaza, along with thousands of personnel for an international stabilization force in the territory. The pledges are set to be formally unveiled Thursday when the board convenes for its inaugural meeting in Washington.

"The Board of Peace will prove to be the most consequential International Body in History, and it is my honor to serve as its Chairman," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. He did not specify which countries were contributing or how the $5 billion would be divided among member states, though a draft charter previously reported on indicated that countries were asked to contribute at least $1 billion for a permanent seat on the board. The United States and the United Arab Emirates have each committed more than $1 billion to the effort.

Thursday's meeting is expected to draw delegations from more than 20 countries, including heads of state, to the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace — the renamed U.S. Institute of Peace, which the State Department rechristened in December. The building itself is the subject of ongoing litigation brought by former employees and executives of the nonprofit think tank after the administration seized the facility last year and fired nearly all of its staff.

The Scale of What's Needed

The $5 billion in pledges, while substantial, represents a fraction of what reconstruction will actually cost. The United Nations, World Bank, and European Union have estimated the total price of rebuilding Gaza at roughly $70 billion. More than two years of Israeli military operations left few parts of the territory untouched.

The Oct. 10 U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas called for an armed international force to provide security in Gaza and oversee the disarmament of Hamas — a central demand from Israel. But assembling that force has proven difficult. Few nations have expressed concrete willingness to contribute troops.

That changed Sunday when Indonesia's military confirmed it expects up to 8,000 of its troops to be ready by the end of June for a possible peace and humanitarian deployment. It is the first firm troop commitment Trump has secured for the proposed stabilization force. Beyond Indonesia, no other country has publicly detailed specific personnel contributions.

Who's In — and Who's Not

Trump first announced the Board of Peace at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22, where he signed the body's charter alongside political allies including Argentine President Javier Milei and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Representatives from Bahrain, Morocco, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan also attended.

Since then, more than 20 countries have accepted invitations. Israel formally signed onto the board last week during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House, though Netanyahu is not expected to attend Thursday's meeting. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar will represent the country in his place. Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said she is likely to attend as an observer.

The membership list is notable as much for who declined as for who joined. Several major European nations — including France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Slovenia, Greece, and Ukraine — turned down Trump's invitation. Many of America's closest Western allies have expressed skepticism about the board's purpose, suspecting it may be an attempt to rival or sideline the U.N. Security Council.

New Zealand also declined, with Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters saying his country did not believe it could add significant value to the effort and that it needed more clarity on the board's scope. "New Zealand will not be joining the Board in its current form but will continue to monitor developments," Peters wrote on social media in late January.

Canada's invitation was revoked entirely after Prime Minister Mark Carney criticized Washington's economic pressure on European allies during his own speech at Davos. Trump responded publicly, saying Canada "lives because of the United States" and pulling the offer.

Hamas Disarmament Remains the Sticking Point

Trump used his Sunday post to press Hamas on what remains the most contentious element of the peace plan: full disarmament.

"Very importantly, Hamas must uphold its commitment to Full and Immediate Demilitarization," he wrote.

Disarmament is a core requirement of the second phase of Trump's 20-point ceasefire plan. Under the agreement, Israeli forces are to gradually withdraw from Gaza while Hamas surrenders its weapons and an international stabilization force takes over security. Hamas has indicated it could consider transferring weapons to a future Palestinian governing authority, but the group has repeatedly described full disarmament as a red line it will not cross.

Two sources involved in the Board of Peace told Israeli media that Hamas's demilitarization process could begin as early as March, tied to the implementation of a technocratic committee tasked with governing Gaza. But that timeline depends on conditions that remain far from settled.

Both Israel and Hamas have accused each other of repeated ceasefire violations since October. Gaza's Health Ministry says Israeli troops have killed more than 590 Palestinians in the territory since the ceasefire took effect. Israel has reported four of its soldiers killed by Palestinian militants during the same period.

Nickolay Mladenov, the High Representative for Gaza and a senior Board of Peace envoy, warned at the Munich Security Conference on Friday that ongoing violations from both sides risk undermining the technocratic committee before it can function. "If you put the committee tomorrow in Gaza and the violations of the ceasefire continue the way they are now," Mladenov said, "we're only embarrassing the committee and ultimately making it ineffective."

What the Board Is Becoming

The Board of Peace was initially conceived as a mechanism for ending the Israel-Hamas war and managing Gaza's postwar transition. But it has steadily taken on broader ambitions. Trump has positioned it as an international body with what he called "unlimited potential," and its scope appears to be expanding beyond the Middle East.

That trajectory has drawn wariness from traditional multilateral institutions and the countries that support them. The board was authorized by a U.N. Security Council resolution, but its structure — chaired by a sitting U.S. president, funded through billion-dollar membership fees, and housed in a building renamed after Trump — bears little resemblance to existing international bodies. Western European governments have been particularly cautious, wary of lending legitimacy to what they see as a potential competitor to the Security Council rather than a complement to it.

Whether the $5 billion in pledges materializes in full, and whether the board can assemble a credible stabilization force capable of operating in one of the world's most volatile territories, will depend on what happens after Thursday's meeting. For now, the gap between the $5 billion committed and the $70 billion needed to rebuild Gaza remains enormous, and the question of who will enforce the peace on the ground is still largely unanswered.