By Milkaela Nhondo Erskog
Khaled Abu Jarrar, a 58-year-old Palestinian from Beit Hanoon, now shelters in Gaza City’s former Legislative Council building—one of thousands of structures repurposed as displacement camps after Israel’s genocidal assault reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble. His wife was recently diagnosed with liver cancer. She needs urgent treatment abroad, but the Rafah crossing remains sealed.
As international powers announce frameworks and phases, Abu Jarrar watches the gap between diplomatic language and ground reality: “In the media, they talk about withdrawals and reconstruction, but on the ground, the bombing continues from the north and the south, and things seem even more complicated… On the ground, the shelling never stops.”
This gap—between the lived reality of Palestinians in Gaza and the geopolitical frameworks imposed upon them—defines the current moment. On one side stands the so-called Board of Peace, a US-led body designed to assert Western control over Gaza’s reconstruction and governance. On the other, Palestinians themselves have formed a technocratic committee, supported across factional lines, attempting to deliver services and preserve unity under catastrophic conditions. Understanding this moment requires holding both realities simultaneously: the imperial architecture of the Board of Peace, and the Palestinian political sophistication navigating within and against it.
The Gaza Peace Board: Imperial Trusteeship by Design...