The Board of Peace, which was founded by United States President Donald Trump in January to oversee the administration and reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, is facing a crippling cash crunch that threatens to derail its ambitious $70bn reconstruction plan for the devastated enclave.The US-led board recently reported a critical gap between its financial commitments and actual disbursements, warning of an urgent liquidity crisis, according to the Reuters news agency.However, experts tracking international aid to Palestinians said the funding shortfall is neither surprising nor purely administrative. Instead, they argued that the reluctance of Arab and European donors stems from the board’s controversial structure, a lack of a viable political horizon for a Palestinian state and Israel’s ongoing military expansion across the besieged enclave.Moath al-Amoudi, an expert in international aid to Palestinians, told Al Jazeera that the heavily publicised pledges are closer to a “talk show” than a genuine humanitarian effort.“Out of the $17bn pledged, the actual liquidity that has reached the ground is zero,” al-Amoudi said. “Donors are terrified of engaging with a board that carries no political vision and treats Gaza merely as an American security protectorate.”A history of empty promisesThe gap between pledges and actual disbursements is a historical constant in the Palestinian context, but the US has a particularly poor track record, al-Amoudi noted.After the 1993 Oslo Accord, the international community fulfilled only 70 percent of its commitments. The agreement, brokered by the US, saw the Palestinians and Israelis agree to recognise each other for the first time and led to the creation of the …
