The White House has announced the first members of its Gaza 'Board of Peace,' and the list of names will do little to dispel the criticism from some quarters that the US president's plan resembles, at its heart, a colonial solution imposed over the heads of the Palestinians.
There are still several unknowns - namely who else might be added, and the exact structure of what is currently a rather complicated layout.
So far, no Palestinian names are included on the two separate senior boards that have been officially unveiled. One is a 'founding Executive Board', with a high-level focus on investment and diplomacy. The other, called the 'Gaza Executive Board', is responsible for overseeing all on-the-ground work of yet another administrative group, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG).
That committee is made up of supposedly technocratic, apolitical Palestinians, led by Dr Ali Shaath, a civil engineer by training who's held ministerial positions in the Palestinian Authority.
But of the seven members of the founding Executive Board, six are Americans - including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other members of Trump's inner circle like his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff, who is US Special Envoy to the Middle East, but also a friend of the president and a fellow real estate developer.
Ajay Banga, president of the World Bank, is something of an exception as an Indian-born US citizen. Sir Tony Blair, meanwhile, is a former UK Prime Minister, and his inclusion is likely to further fuel concerns about how the Board of Peace will operate.
Over the past few weeks, criticism of Sir Tony's possible inclusion has come from figures like prominent politician Mustafa Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, and newspaper reports quoting unnamed officials from Arab states in the region. Sir Tony's central role in the Iraq war, coupled with Britain's own colonial history in the Middle East, is deemed by his opponents to make him entirely unsuitable.
The UN estimates around 80% of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged and families who have survived the war are now struggling with the winter weather, and a lack of food and shelter. While aid groups say there has been some improvements, they accuse Israel of imposing continuing restrictions upon their work. Israel claims it is facilitating humanitarian assistance and any restrictions are designed to stop Hamas from exploiting relief efforts.
Overall, major challenges remain to both the governance and reconstruction plans set forth by the newly established boards, including maintaining a fragile ceasefire and the complex task of convincing Hamas to disarm as part of a broader peace negotiation.
