Pakistan has been invited to the first proposed meeting of US President Donald J. Trump’s Board of Peace, formed under the framework of his Gaza initiative, and Islamabad is likely to accept the invitation to attend the session scheduled for February 19 in Washington, D.C., diplomatic sources confirmed.
Pakistan will be represented either by the prime minister or the deputy prime minister.
The meeting, to be held at the United States Institute of Peace – recently renamed the Donald J. Trump US Institute of Peace – will gather leaders and representatives from member states to advance the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, address humanitarian aid, and begin structured planning on Gaza’s reconstruction and temporary administrative mechanisms. The US sent out invitations to the 26 other countries represented on the panel on Friday afternoon, the diplomats added.
The Board of Peace was formally established last month, following its initial announcement at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and was referenced in United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803 (2025) as an entity tasked with facilitating reconstruction and governance efforts in the Gaza Strip.
Pakistan’s decision places it alongside 14 other countries that have accepted invitations to the board – a roster that includes several Muslim-majority and strategically significant states – even as many Western European powers have opted not to join.
In a Foreign Ministry statement affirming Islamabad’s acceptance as a founding member of the body, Pakistan said it hopes “concrete steps will be taken towards the implementation of a permanent ceasefire, further scaling up of humanitarian aid for the Palestinians, as well as reconstruction of Gaza.”
That official framing reflects Islamabad’s desire to signal principled engagement. For decades, Pakistan has backed Palestinian rights at the United Nations and in global forums, consistently opposing Israel’s military operations in Gaza and elsewhere. In 2025, massive protests across Pakistan drew thousands into the streets in solidarity with Palestinians, underscoring the depth of public sentiment on the issue.
Yet the Board of Peace itself has drawn scepticism from other quarters. Some foreign policy analysts describe it as a mechanism that centralises agenda-setting authority in Washington and could risk supplanting established multilateral structures, even as its charter positions US leadership at the helm.
For Islamabad, the calculus appears calibrated as in the words of one diplomatic source, “absence from emergent diplomatic frameworks often means absence from the hard bargaining over phrasing, funding, and political conditions that shape on-ground realities.” Pakistan’s participation will allow its diplomats to press for humanitarian priorities, civilian protections, and reconstruction principles that align with Pakistani calls for a durable Palestinian ceasefire.
The venue and scheduling of the meeting have also attracted scrutiny. The Washington session comes one day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is slated to meet President Trump at the White House, a sequence that highlights the US administration’s attempt to thread competing diplomatic imperatives even as Israel has not publicly confirmed its formal participation. However, while Netanyahu expressed opposition over the Trump administration’s inclusion of Qatar and Turkey on the Board of Peace’s Gaza Executive Board, diplomats suggest that he will have little choice but to attend the Washington gathering, given that not doing so when he is already in town would be viewed as a snub of the US president.
The Board of Peace initiative itself – originally conceived as a focused mechanism to support Gaza’s post-war rehabilitation – has since been described in draft documentation as having a potentially broader mandate to address global conflicts. Its charter reportedly outlines terms of membership that may require substantial financial contributions for extended participation, raising questions about equity, influence, and the practical roles of smaller states within the body. Voices in New Delhi have already begun to link it to a potential intervention in occupied Kashmir. Islamabad’s participation is being portrayed by sources in Islamabad as a pragmatic step toward ensuring Pakistan’s voice is heard at the earliest stages of shaping post-war governance and reconstruction frameworks for Gaza.
Separately, a senior Hamas leader said that the group would not surrender its weapons nor accept foreign intervention in Gaza, pushing back against US and Israeli demands. “Criminalising the resistance, its weapons, and those who carried it out is something we should not accept,” Khaled Meshal said at a conference in Doha.
“As long as there is occupation, there is resistance. Resistance is a right of peoples under occupation […] something nations take pride in,” said Meshal, who previously headed the group.
On Sunday, Meshal urged the Board of Peace to adopt what he called a “balanced approach” that would allow for Gaza’s reconstruction and the flow of aid to its roughly 2.2 million residents, while warning that Hamas would “not accept foreign rule” over Palestinian territory.
“We adhere to our national principles and reject the logic of guardianship, external intervention, or the return of a mandate in any form,” Meshal said. “Palestinians are to govern Palestinians. Gaza belongs to the people of Gaza and to Palestine.