Feb 14 (Reuters) – Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar will attend U.S. President Donald Trump’s first formal Board of Peace meeting on February 19, two Israeli officials said on Saturday.
U.S. officials told Reuters this week that Trump will announce a multi-billion dollar reconstruction plan for Gaza and detail plans for a U.N.-authorized stabilization force for the Palestinian enclave at the meeting in Washington.
Delegations from at least 20 countries, including heads of state, are expected to attend the meeting of the board whose creation was endorsed by a United Nations Security Council resolution as part of Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war.
While regional Middle East powers, including Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as major emerging nations such as Indonesia, have joined the board, global powers and traditional Western U.S. allies have been more cautious.
The U.S. officials said the meeting will focus on Gaza, where two years of war have left much of the Palestinian enclave in ruins.
Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas agreed to Trump’s plan last year with a ceasefire taking effect in October. More than 590 Palestinians, many of them civilians, and four Israeli soldiers have been killed in rounds of violence that have erupted since.
Both sides have accused each other of violating the ceasefire, even as Trump’s administration has pressed for progress to the next steps envisaged in the plan.
One of those is the deployment of the International Stabilization Force, as Israeli troops further withdraw and Hamas disarms.
The U.S. officials said Trump will announce that several countries plan to provide several thousand troops to the stabilization force that is expected to deploy in Gaza in the months ahead.
Hamas has so far rejected demands to lay down its weapons and Israel has said that if the group does not disarm peacefully, Israel will have to force it to do so.
(Reporting by Maayan Lubell; Writing by Enas Alashray; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
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