Trump appoints Blair, Rubio, Witkoff and Kushner to Gaza Peace Council

Donald Trump on Friday unveiled the list of members of the Gaza Peace Council, which he will chair. The council will include, among others, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The announcement comes two days after Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, revealed the launch of Phase Two of the Trump plan to end the war in the territory, following three months of a fragile ceasefire achieved on October 10 under pressure from Washington.

This second phase calls for the disarmament of Hamas, the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, and the deployment of an International Stabilization Force, in line with a plan endorsed by the UN Security Council in November.

The Peace Council will be responsible for overseeing this process, as well as supervising a temporary Palestinian technocratic committee composed of 15 individuals tasked with administering the Gaza Strip during the transitional period.

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Nickolay Mladenov, the discreet diplomat to oversee Gaza's transition

Alongside Blair and Rubio, the council includes Witkoff and the U.S. president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a businessman and unofficial mediator for the Trump administration, as well as World Bank President Ajay Banga, Trump said in a statement.

The list of seven figures, five of them American, whom the White House describes as the “founding executive board” also includes Marc Rowan, the billionaire head of investment firm Apollo Global Management, and Robert Gabriel, an adviser to Donald Trump.

According to the statement, each member will “oversee a defined sector necessary for the stabilization and long-term success of Gaza,” including the establishment of government structures, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attractiveness, and large-scale financing and capital mobilization.

Trump had already announced in October that Blair would serve on the future Peace Council, though doubts later emerged about the former British prime minister’s participation due to strong opposition from Arab countries stemming from his support for the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Trump promised “the greatest and most prestigious council ever assembled.”

Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov, who had been expected to play a key role, will serve as High Representative for Gaza, the White House announced. U.S. General Jasper Jeffers will lead the International Stabilization Force in the Palestinian territory.

General Jeffers previously served as the U.S. military representative to the “Mechanism” overseeing the implementation of the cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel from November 2024 to April 2025. The deployment of this force, outlined in the Trump plan, is intended to help secure Gaza and train Palestinian police units.

Reconstruction efforts will “rely essentially” on the Egyptian Arab-Islamic plan, said the head of the Palestinian committee, Ali Shaath, an engineer and former Palestinian deputy minister, in an interview with Egyptian television channel al-Qahera News, which is known for its close ties to Egyptian intelligence. The plan was adopted in March 2025 with European backing, in response to Trump’s earlier proposal for the United States to take control of the Palestinian territory and transform it into the “Riviera of the Middle East” after expelling its inhabitants.

On the ground, the Israeli army said it carried out airstrikes on Thursday in response to gunfire earlier in the week targeting its troops in the southern Gaza Strip, which it described as a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire. In a statement, Hamas accused Israel of “another violation” of the truce, saying the raids killed at least seven people, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense, a first-responder organization operating under Hamas’s authority.

Hamas rejected the creation of the Peace Council for Gaza in October, with senior official Osama Hamdan denouncing what he described as a return “to the era of mandates and colonialism.”