India, Sept. 23 -- The headline figure is $2.45 billion, spread across 66 projects, phased over six months. On any other Tuesday it might read as progress. On Wednesday it arrived alongside a different number: seven. That is how many Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza before the Board of Peace's envoys finished their briefing at the United Nations General Assembly.

Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, stood alongside Jared Kushner, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the board's high representative Nickolay Mladenov to present what they called a recovery blueprint. Infrastructure would take the largest share, roughly $1 billion, covering temporary shelters, rubble clearance, hospital rehabilitation...