India invited to President Donald Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ for Gaza; Pakistan too

US President Donald Trump had unveiled the board as part of the second phase of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas to end Israel bombardment of Gaza

Updated on: Jan 19, 2026, 07:49:59 IST

By Rezaul H Laskar

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New Delhi : US President Donald Trump has invited India to be part of the so-called “Board of Peace” for Gaza along with other world leaders, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

India has been invited by US President Donald Trump to be part of the Board of Peace for Gaza, people familiar with the matter said .

Trump had unveiled the board as part of the second phase of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas to end Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, and the body is expected to oversee capacity-building for governance, reconstruction, investments and capital mobilisation in the devastated enclave.

“India has been invited by President Trump to be part of the Board of Peace for Gaza,” one of the people said on condition of anonymity, without giving details.

The development came hours after Pakistan’s Foreign Office said in a statement that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had received an invitation from Trump to join the Board of Peace.

Turkiye President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the leaders of France, Germany, ⁠Australia and Canada have also reportedly been invited to join the board.

Some details of the Board of Peace emerged when letters written by Trump to Argentina’s President Javier Milei and Paraguay’s President Santiago Pena were posted by the two leaders on social media. Trump’s letter to Milei said the board will work to “solidify Peace in the Middle East” and “embark on a bold new approach to resolving Global Conflict”.

A draft ‍charter ‍sent to some 60 countries by the Trump administration calls for members of the board ⁠to contribute $1 billion in cash if they want ‍their membership to last more than three years, Reuters reported.

The Financial Times quoted this charter as saying that “the Board of Peace is an international organisation that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict”.

On Friday, Trump announced that former British prime minister Tony Blair - who faced intense criticism for supporting the 2003 invasion of Iraq based on claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, which later proved false - will be among the board’s founding executive members, alongside Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, and World Bank Group President Ajay Banga.

Many of these individuals were also named as members of a “Gaza executive board”, which will oversee the so-called National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, which comprises Palestinian technocrats.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rezaul H Laskar
Rezaul Hasan Laskar is Foreign Editor with the Hindustan Times, which he joined in 2015. He began as a journalist in his hometown of Shillong in northeast India and has worked in newspapers and wire services over the years. He moved to New Delhi in 1997 and initially focused on defence, national security, Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast, while also working of foreign policy and international relations. He has been part of the media delegation accompanying PMs on foreign visits and has reported from destinations ranging from Tibet to Ukraine. Between 2007 and 2013, he was the Press Trust of India correspondent in Pakistan, one of only two Indian journalists allowed to report from the country. He extensively covered Pakistan’s domestic politics and the life of the common people, as well as the fallout of the 2008 Mumbai attacks on India-Pakistan relations and the subsequent trial in Pakistan of the suspects involved in the attack. As part of his reportage in Pakistan, he travelled the breadth of the country, from the Swat Valley to Balochistan. Reza’s first gig in journalism was writing a weekly music column, and music – especially classic rock – remains a keen interest. He is also a movie buff and a keen photographer.Read More

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