Trump’s Gaza reconstruction plan stalls as Israel blocks contractors, heavy machinery

Israel's refusal to admit contractors into Gaza has frozen the first major project proposed by President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, which oversees the rehabilitation of the coastal enclave. The Guardian reports that Israel has so far not allowed contractors, heavy machinery and construction materials to enter Gaza, stalling the first construction project awarded by the board. 

In August, the board granted the contract to Arkel International, a Louisiana-based firm, to build a temporary military outpost measuring 100 metres by 100 metres at a former Gaza Humanitarian Foundation site. The base is meant to house 150 international troops from a 500-soldier deployment drawn from Morocco and Kosovo, and it is intended as the vanguard of a planned International Stabilisation Force of 20,000 personnel. Board officials describe the outpost as the essential prerequisite for all later recovery work, since without a stabilisation force stationed there international teams cannot secure borders, bring in heavy equipment, lay basic utilities or establish life-support infrastructure. Israeli officials and the military have declined to comment. Sources indicate that the board expects Israel to grant entry permits only after its general election on October 27, which leaves the wider $2.45 billion reconstruction roadmap largely paralysed.

The ceasefire agreed in October 2025 required Israel to withdraw to a designated Yellow Line, which left its military in control of roughly 50 per cent of the Gaza Strip. Over the past year, Israeli forces have repeatedly moved concrete boundary markers westward into areas such as Shujayea, and Israel now controls approximately 60 cent of the enclave. The shift confines Gaza's two million residents to a shrinking coastal strip, and many families have been displaced six to eight times, with few places left that offer safety.

Full-scale combat officially ended on October 10, 2025, yet Israel has carried out near-daily aerial and artillery strikes across Gaza. Israeli officials maintain that the operations target Hamas militants attempting to regroup and rearm. Local health authorities report that more than 1,400 Palestinians, predominantly women and children, have been killed since the ceasefire began, which brings the total war toll beyond 74,000, while Palestinian militants have killed five Israeli soldiers in the same period. Civilians sheltering in tent camps remain exposed to shelling, gunfire and drone attacks.

Humanitarian conditions remain critical, with between 1.2 million and 1.4 million Palestinians facing acute hunger. Trump's peace plan stipulated a minimum of 600 aid trucks a day, whereas deliveries have averaged roughly 227. Aid organisations report that Israeli authorities restrict essential supplies by classifying items such as metal tent poles, engine oil, spare machine parts and medical ventilators as dual-use military equipment. Displaced families therefore remain in overcrowded and unsanitary encampments, without winter materials, adequate clean water or other basic necessities.

Political progress is deadlocked over security and governance. Hamas has agreed to transfer weapons to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, a US-backed technocratic Palestinian body, but it rejects full disarmament while Israeli attacks continue. Israel regards the arrangement as unacceptable and refuses any troop withdrawal until Hamas is fully disarmed. It has also barred the committee's Cairo-based technocrats, led by Ali Shaath, from entering Gaza, so the territory has neither an operational civilian administration nor the planned stabilisation force.

The scale of the task is considerable. The UN and the EU estimate long-term recovery costs at $71.4 billion, whereas the Board of Peace has unveiled a $2.45 billion plan covering 66 projects. Investigative reports have also raised potential conflicts of interest among board figures, including Jared Kushner, whose firm Affinity Partners manages funds tied to defence companies that supply Israel's military. The Board of Peace dismissed the allegations as baseless sensationalism, though the reports have drawn scrutiny to international oversight and to private commercial ties in the rebuilding effort.

All of this is bound up with Israel's general election on October 27. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has built his campaign on security credentials, and political discourse across the spectrum has moved decisively to the right. Far-right cabinet ministers and party leaders openly advocate permanent military control, the annexation of Gaza or the mass voluntary emigration of Palestinians, while discussion of a two-state solution has virtually disappeared from the debate. The electoral incentives favour hawkish policies, which ties the timing of any permits for the Arkel project to the outcome of the vote and points to prolonged military oversight and further delay in the compromises that a lasting settlement would require.