This is not just about a region in this world where human rights are not given, and people are being killed. It is about humanity, life, and the very foundations of values that humans are living with. When Gaza is discussed today, it is rarely in the language of rights. It is discussed as a problem to be solved, a territory to be stabilized, and a population to be administered.

The announcement of a new international “Board of Peace” fits neatly into this pattern. Presented as a bold initiative to guide Gaza out of conflict and into reconstruction, the Board of Peace has been framed by its sponsors as innovative, inclusive, and forward-looking. Yet for Palestinians, the announcement raises an older, still unresolved question: Who decides Gaza’s future, and on what authority?

What Is the Board of Peace?

The Board of Peace was announced by US President Donald Trump as part of a broader Phase Two Gaza plan, marking a shift from ceasefire management to post-genocide governance and reconstruction.

According to official descriptions, the board is meant to:

• Oversee Gaza’s political transition
• Coordinate reconstruction funding and investment
• Provide international supervision during a “transitional” period

Trump declared himself chair of the board and described it as a high-level body composed of political leaders, financial figures, and diplomatic actors. Unlike the United Nations, the board has no clear treaty basis, no General Assembly mandate, and no defined accountability mechanism.

It is powerful not because it is formal, but because it is backed by money, political leverage, and security control.

Who is on the Board?

The individuals named or referenced in connection with the Board of Peace are not neutral facilitators.

The board’s executive circle includes:

• Marco Rubio, US Senator and the Secretary of State
• Tony Blair, former UK prime minister
• Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former Middle East envoy
• Steve Witkoff, US real estate magnate and political donor
• Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank

These are figures associated with Western political power, financial institutions, and security-centric diplomacy. None are elected Palestinian representatives. None comes from Gaza. The imbalance is structural, not incidental.

Which Countries Were Invited?

One of the board’s defining features is its attempt to project global legitimacy through invited state participation.

According to credible sources, Trump sent invitations to around 60 world leaders. Those explicitly named in reporting include:

• Turkey (President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan)
• Egypt (President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi)
• Canada (Prime Minister Mark Carney)
• Argentina (President Javier Milei)

Moreover, some diplomatic sources also indicate the list includes:

• Britain
• Germany
• Italy
• Morocco
• Indonesia
• Australia

The Palestinian Face of the Plan: Who Is Ali Shaath?

To provide the plan with Palestinian leadership, the US has backed Ali Shaath as head of the transitional Palestinian committee that will administer Gaza’s civil affairs under the Board of Peace.

Shaath’s profile is central to understanding how this governance model is being sold.

Here is a quick overview of Ali Shaath:

• He was born in 1958 in Khan Younis
• He is a civil engineer with a PhD from Queen’s University Belfast
• He previously served as deputy minister of planning in the Palestinian Authority
• He has worked on industrial zone projects in both Gaza and the West Bank

Shaath has spoken publicly about the scale of Gaza’s destruction, estimating around 68 million tons of rubble, much of it contaminated with unexploded ordnance. He has suggested that clearing debris could take three years, with full recovery achievable in seven years. It seems to be a far more optimistic timeline than UN estimates, which warn that rebuilding could extend beyond 2040.

Politically, Shaath has been described as acceptable to both Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, precisely because he is positioned as a technocrat rather than a political leader. However, it is yet to be observed how he would work with the other members.

Governance Without Sovereignty

The Palestinian committee, chaired by Shaath, has issued a mission statement pledging to restore services, rebuild infrastructure, and stabilize daily life in Gaza.

The committee describes its work as “rooted in peace” and focused on technocratic administration rather than politics.

Yet the committee:

• Controls no borders
• Commands no security forces
• Regulates no airspace or coastline
• Has no electoral mandate

It governs without power, while power remains in external hands.

When it comes to the reaction of the people of Gaza, they showed mixed feelings of skepticism over hope. Some Palestinians express cautious hope that any plan might bring electricity, water, and an end to constant displacement. Others see the Board of Peace as another externally designed structure that manages Gaza without addressing the occupation.

Peace Architecture or Power Management?

The Board of Peace is being presented as an innovation. However, history offers a cautionary lens.

Temporary governance structures in occupied or post-conflict territories have a habit of becoming permanent. Reconstruction becomes conditional. Aid becomes leverage. Administration replaces self-determination.

In a nutshell, the Board of Peace asks the world to believe that stability can precede justice, and that governance can substitute for freedom.

For Palestinians, the unanswered question is simpler and older:

If Gaza’s future is designed in Washington, financed in global capitals, and overseen by external boards—where does Palestinian self-determination actually begin?

Until that question is addressed, the Board of Peace risks becoming not a new architecture for peace, but another structure built on the same imbalance that has kept Gaza unfree for decades.

Peace cannot be outsourced, and a people cannot be rebuilt while being brutally ruled.

The second phase of Gaza’s so-called peace plan has officially been announced. It is being described as a transition from ceasefire to governance, from violence to rebuilding. However, on the ground in Gaza, the distinction is harder to locate.

Isn’t it shocking that more than three months after the ceasefire took effect in October, Palestinians are still being killed, and aid is a privilege to have? Entire neighborhoods remain uninhabitable. So, the announcement of phase two does not coincide with calm. It arrives amid continued military pressure, delayed withdrawals, and a humanitarian system operating far below what was promised.

There is a crucial question Palestinians are asking, and that is not whether Phase Two exists on paper, but whether it alters the reality of power.

What Phase Two Claims to Change

According to some US officials, Phase Two is meant to shift the Gaza file from emergency truce management to long-term stabilization. Its three pillars are clear:

• First, the demilitarization of Hamas and other armed groups, framed as a non-negotiable precondition for any durable peace.
• Second, the establishment of a Palestinian technocratic committee to administer Gaza’s civil affairs during a transitional period.
• Third, the beginning of reconstruction planning, coordinated under international supervision and tied to security compliance.

In theory, this is where genocide ends, and governance begins, but in practice, each pillar raises more questions than answers.

Phase One by the Numbers: A Ceasefire in Name

Before moving further, let’s have a look at the overview of Phase One. Since the ceasefire came into force on October 10, at least 451 Palestinians have been killed and more than 1,250 injured, an average of nearly five deaths per day. Military operations continued under the language of “enforcement” and “targeted action,” blurring the very meaning of a ceasefire.

When it comes to the prisoner exchanges, Hamas and Israel both released most of the captives. Bodies were also exchanged, with one reportedly still trapped under rubble.

Aid delivery fell far short of commitments. Between October and early January, around 23,019 aid trucks entered Gaza out of a promised 54,000, roughly 43% of the target.

Critical crossings, including Rafah, remained closed or heavily restricted. Aid organizations reported operational paralysis as bans, inspections, and suspensions multiplied.

In other words, Phase One did not fulfill its promises. It managed the violence without ending it.

Demilitarization Before Relief

Phase Two places demilitarization at its core. President Trump has repeatedly framed it as a binary choice—an “easy way or a hard way.” The message is unambiguous: disarmament first, normalization later.

What remains unaddressed is the imbalance this creates. Israel retains control over Gaza’s airspace, coastline, borders, population registry, and imports. Palestinian armed groups are asked to disarm while occupation-level controls persist.

It is pertinent to mention that international law does not recognize demilitarization as a substitute for political rights. Yet phase two calls itself the engine of peace, while humanitarian access, withdrawal timelines, and accountability for genocidal destruction remain secondary.

For many Palestinians, this sequencing feels less like peacebuilding and more like containment.

The Technocratic Committee: Governance Without Power

There will be a 15-member Palestinian committee tasked with administering Gaza’s civil affairs. Its stated mission includes restoring basic services, managing reconstruction, and laying foundations for stability.

Its members are presented as non-political professionals, including engineers, administrators, and planners. But what is missing is authority.

The committee operates under external oversight, with no electoral mandate, no independent security control, and no ability to regulate borders, trade, or movement. Its legitimacy is managerial, not democratic.

However, it’s not shocking for Palestinians as they are familiar with this model. Over the past three decades, “temporary” arrangements have repeatedly substituted administration for sovereignty. Technocracy becomes a way to manage populations without resolving the structures that disempower them.

Palestinian Voices

Some reports from Gaza capture a mood that is neither celebratory nor dismissive, but only exhausted.

Some residents express cautious hope that Phase Two might at least bring predictability: electricity that lasts more than a few hours, water that runs clean, streets cleared of rubble. On the other hand, most of them see another externally designed plan that speaks the language of peace while preserving the architecture of control.

One displaced man described being forced to move 17 times since the genocide began. Another questioned how demilitarization could be discussed while entire families still sleep in tents beside the ruins of their homes.

For many, peace is not an abstract framework, but the ability to survive the night without fear.

Aid as Leverage, Reconstruction as Reward

Phase Two introduces reconstruction, but not as a right. Aid and rebuilding are explicitly linked to compliance. This conditionality transforms humanitarian relief into a pressure tool.

History offers little comfort here. Millions pledged to Gaza after previous acts were delayed, diverted, or blocked entirely. The difference now is scale. Gaza’s destruction is unprecedented, with tens of millions of tons of rubble, unexploded ordnance, and erased neighborhoods.

Therefore, rebuilding without political change risks entrenching dependency rather than restoring dignity.

A Governance Phase Built on Unresolved Violence

Although phase two is described as a transition, transitions require movement—away from violence, toward rights.

So far, what has changed is not the structure of power, but the language used to describe it.

Demilitarization is demanded without de-occupation. Governance is promised without sovereignty. Reconstruction is discussed while restrictions remain.

This is not peace delayed. It is peace redefined—away from justice, toward management. Ultimately, nothing can substitute for Gaza’s right to determine its own future, which has been denied for decades.

In an unfortunate series of events in Gaza, some deaths arrive without the sound of missiles. It’s just a tent that fails in wind and rain, a baby whose body can’t hold sufficient heat, and a clinic that can’t keep a neonatal ward warm due to fuel scarcity.

This winter, cold is not an “act of nature” in Gaza, but a predictable outcome of mass displacement into makeshift shelters. Additionally, aid restrictions further exacerbate the situation.

On January 10, 2026, the death of Mahmoud Al-Aqraa, a seven-day-old infant in Deir el-Balah, was reported. Medical sources attributed his death to extreme cold. The same report highlighted nighttime temperatures in Gaza dropping as low as 9°C (48°F) in recent days.

Apparently, nine degrees sounds survivable, but only in a home with a roof, dry bedding, electricity, and heat. But when it comes to Gaza’s displacement camps, it is fatal.

The Numbers Behind the “Winter Crisis”

People in their blankets are unable to realize the heart-trembling cries of the innocent children of Gaza. The UN’s humanitarian coordination office (OCHA) documented that since 10 December, more than 42,000 tents or makeshift shelters were estimated to have sustained full or partial damage across 320 displacement sites, affecting at least 235,000 people.

However, that is not a handful of torn tents, but a shelter system collapsing in real time, over weeks, repeatedly, during storms.

OCHA also warned that winter storms are heightening the risk of cold-related illnesses and preventable deaths, particularly among children under five.

Some of them are documented as follows:

• Gaza’s Ministry of Health recorded three children who died of hypothermia, including a two-month-old who died on 29 December.
• OCHA also cited Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reporting that a 29-day-old infant died on 18 December shortly after admission to Nasser Medical Complex.

So, these are not just weather tragedies, but deaths occurring inside a controlled environment of deprivation by Israel.

How Blockade Turns Cold into An Executioner

Cold kills fastest when three protections are removed, namely: shelter, fuel, and medical capacity.

In a series of genocidal events, Israel continues to limit the number of tents and sustainable shelters entering Gaza, and also blocks mobile homes and materials used to fix damaged tents.

This matters because winter deaths aren’t random, but followed by a mechanical chain:

1. Storm hits: Tents rip, flood, and are destroyed by a catastrophe
2. Families move: Often to beaches or low-lying areas with poor drainage
3. Bedding stays wet: Children sleep cold and damp for days
4. Respiratory infections surge: Especially among infants
5. Hospitals struggle: Cold wards are facing power/fuel instability, resulting in a higher mortality risk

Moreover, OCHA recorded that storms have inundated tents with seawater in places like Al Mawasi in Khan Younis. It rendered many shelters uninhabitable, forcing families to move again. The world knows what’s happening there, but is not paying heed to these innocent lives.

Aid Access is Being Choked at The Exact Moment Winter Demands Speed

To add fuel to the fire, Israel barred the entry to Gaza of foreign medical and humanitarian aid linked to organizations facing suspension unless they comply with new registration rules. Resultantly, it affected 37 international NGOs.

Reports also quote an MSF coordinator describing how missing key staff creates “a gap” in aid service, and notes UN concerns that registered groups would meet only a fraction of what’s required.

It is evident that aid is being deliberately blocked at a time when it is most needed. Winter is the worst time for gaps, and when tents are destroyed, the timeline isn’t “next month.” It’s tonight.

What Gaza’s Winter Proves: Deprivation Can Kill Without Airstrikes

If a population is forced into tents, storms repeatedly destroy those tents, and the entry of winter protection is restricted while aid capacity is squeezed, then winter becomes more than weather.

It undoubtedly becomes a predictable tool of attrition. Even Gaza’s Civil Defence spokesman rejected the framing of a “weather crisis,” saying the disaster results from genocidal events still going on, leaving people in torn tents and cracked houses without safety.

What Would Stop These Deaths?

Preventing these innocent lives from disease and death is the need of the hour. There are a few steps that need to be taken at an immediate scale:

• Firstly, aid should be completely allowed to come along with relevant items for winter protection.
• Secondly, people of Gaza must be given reliable fuel supplies, food, electricity, and healthcare services.
• Thirdly, the bloodshed should stop, as hundreds of thousands of innocent lives have been lost by now.

To be specific, as per the OCHA reports, shelter partners have distributed 37,740 tents, 127,860 tarpaulins, and 94,980 bedding items since early December. These are far below the needs of over two million people requiring urgent shelter assistance.

In a nutshell, a winter night of 9°C should not kill a newborn.

It kills when shelter is shredded by storms, when bedding stays wet, when fuel and materials are restricted, and when humanitarian systems are squeezed.

Gaza is being forced to live outdoors through winter, and then blamed when the weather does what weather always does. Ultimately, the cold is not the killer, but the siege is.