Israel is refusing to allow a key military outpost project for Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to proceed in Gaza, the Guardian has learned. In early August, the Board of Peace, the international organization authorized in 2025 by the UN and chaired by the US president, issued its first construction contract for Gaza: Louisiana-based Arkel International would construct a military outpost for 150 international troops that would be the vanguard of an international stabilization force. Two months later, Israel has still not permitted the contract to move forward, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
Contractors and trucks are not being allowed to cross into Gaza and begin the work. A Board of Peace spokesperson declined to comment. Neither the Israeli Defense Forces nor the Israeli government responded to requests for comment.
Israel’s war in Gaza is one of the eight wars Trump claims to have resolved. He listed it again last week in a screed on social media, protesting that it was unfair he had not won the Nobel peace prize. The Board of Peace, formed in the wake of an October 2025 ceasefire in Gaza, is central to Trump’s claims to have ended the conflict.
Arkel’s planned “mission support site temporary outpost” is decidedly rudimentary: a fortified position of about 100 meters by 100 meters, at a site that was once part of the controversial and now defunct Gaza Humanitarian Foundation project, according to the person familiar with the matter. The US-backed GHF operated in Gaza from May 2025 till October 2025 to deliver aid protected by private contractors. The base would host short rotating deployments of a well-armed force of 150 troops in Gaza, the person said.
They would come from a larger component of 500 sent already from Morocco and Kosovo. But without this contract, the source said, the rest of the Board of Peace program cannot launch. Israel’s refusal to allow Arkel, the contractor, to build the base, essentially cuts the Board of Peace off at the legs.
You can’t rebuild,” the person said. There’s no deliveries of construction equipment. You can’t even start putting utilities.
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