Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted an invitation to join US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.

A statement from his office said Netanyahu would become a member of the board “which is to be comprised of world leaders”.

The board was originally thought to be aimed at helping end the two-year war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and oversee reconstruction. But its proposed charter does not mention the Palestinian territory and appears to be designed to supplant functions of the UN.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have also agreed to join, as have Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Vietnam. Many others have expressed reservations.

It is not clear how many countries have been invited to join Trump’s new body -Canada, Russia, Turkey and the UK are among them, but have not yet publicly responded.

Norway has said it will not join because the current proposal “raises a number of questions”, while France and Sweden have indicated they will do the same.

According to a copy of the charter leaked to the media, member states will be given a renewable three-year term, but they can secure a permanent place if they contribute $1bn (£740m) of funding to the board.

The document says the Board of Peace will be “an international organisation that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict”. It will “undertake such peace-building functions in accordance with international law”, it adds.

Trump will be the chairman but also “separately serve” as representative of the US. A US official has said the chairmanship can be held by Trump “until he resigns it”, but that a future US president may choose a new representative.

As chairman, he will have “exclusive authority to create, modify or dissolve subsidiary entities as necessary or appropriate to fulfil the Board of Peace’s mission”, according to the document.

He will also select “leaders of global stature” to serve two-year terms on an Executive Board that will help deliver the mission of the Board of Peace, US officials say.

Last Friday, the White House named the seven members of the founding Executive Board. They included US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner as well as former British prime minister Tony Blair.

Trump also named Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian politician and former UN Middle East envoy, as the Board of Peace’s representative on the ground in Gaza during phase two of Trump’s peace plan, which should see the reconstruction and demilitarisation of the territory, including the disarmament of Hamas, as well as a full withdrawal of Israeli forces.

Mladenov will act as a link with a Palestinian technocratic government which will “oversee the restoration of core public services, the rebuilding of civil institutions, and the stabilisation of daily life”.

A separate Gaza Executive Board will help support the technocratic government, according to the White House.

Witkoff, Kushner, Blair, Rowan, Mladenov will serve on it with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad, Qatari strategic affairs minister Ali al-Thawadi, UAE minister of state for international co-operation Reem al-Hashimy, billionaire Israeli real estate developer Yakir Gabay, and Sigrid Kaag, a Dutch politician and UN special co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process.

On Saturday, Netanyahu’s office said the Gaza Executive Board’s composition “was not co-ordinated with Israel and runs contrary to its policy”.

Israeli media said the decision to include representatives of Turkey and Qatar – which both helped broker the ceasefire that took effect in October, along with Egypt and the US – had happened “over Israel’s head”.

Under phase one of the peace plan, Hamas and Israel agreed to the ceasefire, an exchange of living and dead Israeli hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, a partial Israeli withdrawal, and a surge in deliveries of humanitarian aid.

Phase two faces major challenges, with Hamas having previously refused to give up its weapons without the creation of an independent Palestinian state, and Israel having not committed to fully withdrawing from Gaza.

The ceasefire is also fragile. More than 460 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes since it came into force, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, while the Israeli military says three of its soldiers have been killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period.

The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Israel responded to the attack by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 71,550 people have been killed, according to the territory’s health ministry.

US allies reacted to President Donald Trump’s threats to take over Greenland on Tuesday, with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney telling delegates at Davos that it was time to imagine a future without US leadership.

The man who killed Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe has been sentenced to life in prison, three and a half years after he shot him dead at a rally in the city of Nara in 2022.

Tetsuya Yamagami had pleaded guilty to murder at the trial’s opening last year, but how he should be punished has divided public opinion in Japan. While many see the 45-year-old as a cold-blooded murderer, some sympathise with his troubled upbringing.

Prosecutors said Yamagami deserved life imprisonment for his “grave act”. Abe’s assassination stunned the country, where there is virtually no gun crime.

Seeking leniency, Yamagami’s defence team said he was a victim of “religious abuse”.

His mother’s devotion to the Unification Church bankrupted the family, and Yamagami bore a grudge against Abe after realising the ex-leader’s ties to the controversial church.

Nearly 700 people lined up outside the Nara district court on Wednesday to attend the sentencing hearing.

Abe’s shocking death while giving a speech in broad daylight prompted investigations into the Unification Church and its questionable practices, including soliciting financially ruinous donations from its followers.

The case also exposed links with politicians from Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and resulted in the resignations of several cabinet ministers.

Journalist Eito Suzuki, who covered all but one of Yamagami’s court hearings, said Yamagami and his family seemed “overwhelmed with despair” throughout the trial.

Yamagami “exuded a sense of world-weariness and resignation”, recounts Suzuki, who began looking into the Unification Church long before Abe’s shocking murder.

“Everything is true. There is no doubt that I did this,” Yamagami said solemnly on the first day of his trial in October 2025. Armed with a homemade gun assembled using two metal pipes and duct tape, he fired two shots at Abe during a political campaign event in the western city of Nara on 8 July 2022.

The murder of Japan’s most recognisable public figure at the time – Abe remains the longest-serving PM in Japanese history – sent shockwaves around the world.

Calling for a jail term of no more than 20 years, Yamagami’s lawyers argued that he was a victim of “religious abuse”. He resented the church because his mother donated to it his late father’s life insurance and other assets, amounting to 100 million yen (S$828,750), the court heard.

Yamagami spoke of his grievance against Abe, who was 67 when shot, after seeing his video message at a church-related event in 2021, but said he had initially planned to attack church executives, not Abe.

Suzuki recalls Abe’s widow Akie’s look of disbelief when Yamagami said the ex-leader was not his main target. Her expression “remains vividly etched in my mind”, Suzuki says.

“It conveyed a sense of shock, like she was asking: Was my husband merely a tool used to settle a grudge against the religious organisation? Is that all it was?”

In an emotional statement read to the court, Akie Abe said the sorrow of losing her husband “will never be relieved”.

“I just wanted him to stay alive,” she had said.

Founded in South Korea, the Unification Church entered Japan in the 1960s and cultivated ties with politicians to grow its following, researchers say.

While not a member, Abe, like several other Japanese politicians, would occasionally appear at church-related events. His grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, also a former PM, was said to have been close to the group because of its anti-communist stance.

In March last year, a Tokyo court revoked the church’s status as a religious corporation, ruling that it coerced followers into buying expensive items by exploiting fears about their spiritual well-being.

The church has also drawn controversy for holding mass wedding ceremonies involving thousands of couples.

Yamagami’s sister, who appeared as a defence witness during his trial, gave a tearful testimony on the “dire circumstances she and her siblings endured” because of their mother’s deep involvement with the church, Suzuki recalls.

“It was an intensely emotional moment. Nearly everyone in the public gallery appeared to be crying,” he says.

But prosecutors argue there is “a leap in logic” as to why Yamagami directed his resentment of the church at Abe. During the trial, the judges also raised questions suggesting they found it hard to understand this aspect of his defence.

Observers, too, are divided on whether Yamagami’s personal tragedies justify a reduced penalty for his actions.

“It’s hard to dismantle the prosecution’s case that Abe didn’t directly harm Yamagami or his family,” Suzuki says.

But he believes Yamagami’s case illustrates how “victims of social problems are led to commit serious crimes”.

“This chain must be broken, we must properly examine why he committed the crime,” Suzuki says.

Rin Ushiyama, a sociologist at Queen’s University Belfast, says sympathy for Yamagami is largely rooted in “widespread distrust and antipathy in Japan towards controversial religions like the Unification Church”.

“Yamagami was certainly a ‘victim’ of parental neglect and economic hardship caused by the [Unification Church], but this does not explain, let alone justify, his [actions],” Ushiyama says.