President Trump convened the first meeting of the Peace Commission on Thursday morning in Washington, D.C.

President Trump created the group to oversee the Gaza ceasefire plan, and on Thursday announced that member states had pledged $7 billion to rebuild Gaza. He also said the United States would contribute $10 billion to the peace commission.

Representatives from more than 40 countries gathered at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a building now named after Trump. In his opening remarks, President Trump praised Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who took over the building.

The peace commission is chaired by Trump, and the group was formally established last month.

President Trump spoke to a room packed with heads of state and top diplomats. The meeting was attended by senior officials from Argentina, Hungary, India, Pakistan, Vietnam and other countries. Meanwhile, other countries such as the United Kingdom, which is not on the council due to concerns about the possibility of Russia joining the new group, sent observers to the meeting.

Israel and Arab countries are also members of the Council, and representatives from both countries also attended the meeting. There is no Palestinian representative on the board.

“This is the most prestigious board ever established,” President Trump told the assembled dignitaries. “You know, I’ve seen some great corporate boards. I’ve seen some great boards. They pale in comparison to this board.”

Some fear that President Trump’s new organization could be used to undermine the United Nations. On Wednesday, a UN Security Council meeting on Gaza was brought forward to allow diplomats to attend both sessions.

President Trump acknowledged in his remarks Thursday that the commission could play a broader role in the future.

“One day I won’t be here, but I think the United Nations will be stronger. The peace commission will pretty much be overseeing the United Nations and making sure it’s run properly,” Trump said, adding that he would work “very closely” with the United Nations.

“But we are going to strengthen the United Nations. We are going to make sure that the facilities of the United Nations are good. They need help, and they need help with money. We are going to help them with money. And we are going to make sure that the United Nations is viable. We have some very good people who can do a good job for the United Nations,” he said.

The Peace Council meeting was called as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which President Trump imposed last October, remains fragile. Palestinian health officials say Israeli attacks have killed more than 600 people in the Gaza Strip since the start of the ceasefire, and the next steps in the plan remain unclear.

President Trump acknowledged the attack but said the war was effectively over.

“There is very little fire,” he said, noting that the ceasefire had succeeded in returning dozens of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and other armed groups in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an attack on Israel that killed more than 1,100 people.

Gaza is currently divided into two parts. Israeli forces occupy more than half of this small territory, and residents live in dire conditions in a narrow strip of coastal territory controlled by Hamas. Reconstruction funds would go to areas under Israeli military control, rather than to areas where Palestinians currently live.

“Much of the Gaza Strip has been severely damaged and destroyed. Indeed, the humanitarian needs are acute,” Ali Shas, a Palestinian who has been chosen to lead the technocratic committee that administers Gaza under the auspices of the Peace Committee, told the conference.

a A key part of the next phase of Trump’s ceasefire plan is to send thousands of international troops to Gaza. This international stabilization force will not police the streets of Gaza, but will instead serve as a buffer between Israel and Hamas. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, is one of the few countries so far planning to send troops.

Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers, the U.S. Army officer appointed to lead the International Stabilization Force, said the deployment would include 20,000 soldiers and 12,000 police officers.

Nikolai Mladenov, a Bulgarian diplomat and former UN special envoy for the Middle East who has been appointed as the new director-general of the Gaza Peace Committee, told the conference that recruitment has begun for Palestinian police officers in the Gaza Strip and that so far 2,000 people have “applied to join the new Interim Palestinian Police Force in Gaza.”

Another key part of the Trump plan hinges on disarming Hamas. This is one of the demands by Israel, the United States, and several Arab countries, which do not want to funnel money into Gaza without guarantees that Hamas no longer controls the strip, and are concerned that it could lead to a renewed war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas must give up not only heavy weapons such as rockets and mortars, but also small arms such as Kalashnikovs, even as Israel arms rival Palestinian militias fighting Hamas in Gaza.

And this week, Israel said Hamas had only 60 days to give up all its weapons or it would resume full-scale military operations, which would end President Trump’s ceasefire and restart a war that has left Gaza in ruins and killed more than 75,000 people. report by lanceta peer-reviewed medical journal.

The Middle East is bracing for the possibility of a new war with Iran as peace talks take place in Washington on Thursday. President Trump said the Gaza ceasefire would not have been possible if the United States and Israel had not bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities last year.

“So now we may need to go a step further,” he said. “Or maybe not. Maybe we’ll reach an agreement. We’ll probably find out within the next 10 days.”