Trump’s Board of Peace drafts first Gaza base contract

US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” has drafted its first construction contract related to Gaza since it was established in January. According to an August 6 report by The Guardian, the contract provides for the construction of a basic 150-person military base where Moroccan troops would be stationed.

Trump established the Board of Peace to carry out his plans for the territory following Israel’s two-year assault on Palestinians in Gaza. The board has begun preparations for the International Stabilization Force that is due to operate in Gaza.

Morocco had agreed to send troops to the International Stabilization Force, which was created to maintain control in Gaza on behalf of Israel and the US.

Construction contract awarded to US firm active in Iraq

The construction contract was awarded to Louisiana-based Arkel International, which previously carried out various projects in Iraq on behalf of the US government.

However, a Board of Peace official said in an email to The Guardian that the contracts had not yet been finalized. “The Board is in the final stages of preparing various contracts. None has yet been finalized,” the official said.

The official said one of the possible contracts covered the construction of facilities for the International Stabilization Force to support the implementation of the security and governance arrangements in the road map. “This contract is one of many that will be necessary for Gaza’s future,” the official said.

150 troops initially, later 5,000

Under the contract, the base for Moroccan troops would be built on a site measuring 100 metres by 120 metres. The facility, which would house troops deployed on rotation from a base in Israel, would be located about two kilometres from the Israeli border.

The base is planned for the 60% of the Gaza Strip that is under direct occupation by the Israeli military.

According to a draft contract previously seen by The Guardian, the facility would later be expanded to accommodate 5,000 International Stabilization Force troops from different countries.

“Smart city” plan scaled back

Trump said in February 2025 that the US would “take over” Gaza and “own” it.

At the Board of Peace’s first meeting in January 2026, Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner unveiled a “master plan” aimed at transforming Gaza into a high-tech coastal “smart city”.

However, the Trump-led board later scaled back its sweeping ambitions for Gaza’s post-war reconstruction and shifted towards a limited pilot project in the southern buffer zone near Rafah.

The plan envisages “humanitarian aid” camps enclosed by “fences”, where Palestinians would be kept under strict control. Critics have described the compounds as “concentration camps”.

Israel has destroyed or damaged about 80% of the structures in Gaza, including homes, apartment buildings, hospitals, schools and mosques, in attacks aimed at making the territory uninhabitable.

Israeli ministers, settler activists and journalists have called for Gaza to be ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian population and opened to Jewish settlers.

Israel is reported to have killed at least 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, most of them women and children. Independent estimates indicate that the true death toll could run into the hundreds of thousands.