Trump and his grand Gaza project shrinks into a tiny pilot scheme

Trump and his shambolic Board of Peace (BoP) has discarded its recovery plan for Gaza, opting instead for a “tiny pilot scheme” amid fears of a “new all-out offensive before Israeli elections,” the Guardian reported.

The so-called ceasefire hasn’t stopped Israel’s daily bombardment of Gaza. As recently as 16 July, Israeli forces were again striking Palestinians huddled inside tents.

Israel is maniacally bombing Palestinians in tattered tents again tonight. Every. Single. Day. Not a single shot from Hamas for more than 10 months & Israel has killed more than a thousand Palestinians since — including more than 200 children. pic.twitter.com/DWzA42MAyq

— Samira Mohyeddin سمیرا (@SMohyeddin) July 16, 2026

The Guardian quoted a diplomat in Jerusalem as saying that the BoP had no choice but to make the most of very limited progress, as an admission of failure would open the way for extreme factions in the Israeli government with radically different plans for Gaza.

The aim is just to keep something going, keep the ball in play, because if you stop there are others with a more extreme agenda just waiting to jump in and take over, and they are talking about wholesale population transfer and colonisation.

Concentration camps

The Guardian reported that the pilot project has been denounced by critics, including former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, as a “concentration camp” in the making.

The scheme envisions portable cabins for tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians in a camp near Rafah, set up along the ceasefire line.

Israeli troops would withdraw from the line, with security overseen by the International Stabilization Force (ISF) and a Palestinian police force yet to be trained in Egypt.

Preference would be given to former residents of the Rafah area, but BoP officials insist there will be freedom of movement in and out of the camp.

It quotes Muhammad Shehada of the European Council on Foreign Relations as cautioning that Israel would use the camp as a “Potemkin village” to lend credibility to its escalating military campaign against the rest of Gaza.

Trump’s Bored of peace

The X page of the Board of Peace shows the lack of activity.

It has a flurry of performative diplomacy masking a vacuum of actual progress.

It is busy bashing UNRWA. The BoP has made dismantling the UN relief agency a central fixation, framing it as a “complex of perpetual aid dependency” while offering little more than slogans about “peace and prosperity” in its place.

UNRWA has no place in the new Gaza. We are turning the page on the complex of perpetual aid dependency & conflict. The people of Gaza deserve better. https://t.co/MttkJqX1Np

— Board of Peace (@BoardOfPeace) July 1, 2026

Euro-Med Monitor has said that the BoP’s position is closely linked to Israeli campaigns of incitement and targeting against UNRWA.

It said:

Israel’s actions against UNRWA are part of a wider, systematic pattern of targeting Palestinians and their survival resources. This includes attacks on the Agency’s staff and facilities, which are safeguarded by international law. To date, 391 of the Agency’s employees and affiliate workers have been killed, and 312 of its facilities have been damaged or destroyed. Many of these facilities housed displaced civilians seeking refuge, who later fell victim to lethal attacks.

In recent weeks, the BoP’s X page has also busied itself with performative announcements. Morocco and Kosovo signed on to the still-nonexistent International Stabilization Force (ISF). There was a meeting with the European Commission’s Palestine Donor Group. And a pledge to “assess” Gaza’s Emergency Committee dissolution “by actions, not promises.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, the promised ISF for Gaza is struggling to deploy even an initial group of about 10 to 20 troops, according to a US military official and other people familiar with the plans. Trump had planned a 20,000-strong ISF.

Trump and his failed aspirations

The Hill reported recently that at that inaugural meeting, member states pledged $7 billion for Gaza reconstruction, and Trump promised an additional $10 billion in U.S. funds. To date, only $23 million has materialized, and no major reconstruction or security contracts have been awarded.

They said:

The Board of Peace, then, is best understood as a paradigmatic example of a grandiose, self-serving, bait-and-switch public relations strategy that wastes time, energy and money, leaves urgent domestic problems unaddressed, and undermines America’s credibility abroad.

More than a year after Trump unveiled his grandiose vision for a “new Gaza,” the BoP has little to show for it apart from continuing death and blood and no “peace.”

Featured image via the Canary