PM’s office says it was left out of talks on makeup of executive board, which includes senior officials from Turkey, Qatar, who will report to Board of Peace panel of world leaders

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Saturday that the White House’s unveiling of a key international oversight panel for Gaza “was not coordinated with Israel and contradicts its policy,” in a rare break with US President Donald Trump’s administration.

Netanyahu appeared to be taking issue with the makeup of a new body called the executive board, which will include senior officials from Qatar and Turkey — two countries that have been highly critical of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza.

While it will technically operate beneath the Board of Peace — which is headed by Trump and made up of world leaders — the executive board will be more directly involved in overseeing the postwar management of Gaza, playing a critical role as opposed to the more symbolic Board of Peace.

Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the premier had instructed Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to raise Israeli opposition to the executive board’s makeup with his US counterpart, Marco Rubio. Sa’ar has largely been kept away from direct involvement in Israel-US relations, which have run through Netanyahu’s office and his top advisers.

The White House unveiled the makeup of the executive board on Friday, with Turkey to be represented by its Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Qatar to be represented by its senior diplomat Ali Thawadi. They will be joined by Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad, UAE International Cooperation Minister Reem Al-Hashimy, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, US special envoy Steve Witkoff, top Trump aide Jared Kushner, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan, Israeli-Cypriot businessman Yakir Gabay, former UN humanitarian coordinator Sigrid Kaag, and former UN envoy to the Mideast Nickolay Mladenov.

Mladenov, who will effectively head the panel, was given the title of high representative for Gaza, and will act as the on-the-ground link between the Board of Peace and the panel of Palestinian technocrats running daily affairs in the Strip.

The White House has dubbed that Palestinian body the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), and it will effectively be subservient to the Board of Peace and the mid-tier executive board.

The 15-member NCAG is headed by former Palestinian Authority deputy planning minister Ali Shaath, and held its first meeting in Cairo with Mladenov on Saturday.

As for the Board of Peace, the panel of leaders has not yet been unveiled, but invitations to potential members went out on Friday. By Saturday, the leaders of Turkey, Canada and Argentina publicly confirmed receipt — a move that likely indicates their plans to accept the offer.

A source familiar with the matter said Israel did not aggressively push back against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s inclusion on the Board of Peace, recognizing that the more consequential panel is the executive board.

Jerusalem had sought to prevent the inclusion of a Turkish representative on the latter body, but apparently lost that battle in what demonstrated Ankara’s perceived utility in the eyes of Trump, who has repeatedly praised Erdogan — including in front of Netanyahu — and has hailed both Turkey and Qatar’s success in coaxing Hamas to accept his ceasefire deal in October.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he intended to accept Trump’s invitation to the Board of Peace, while in Turkey, a spokesman for Erdogan sufficed with confirming that he had been asked to become a “founding member” of the board.

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