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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.

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has thanked Elon Musk for all the additional publicity that their online spat has brought his airline, saying sales have risen two to three percent in the last five days.

Musk has suggested he could buy the budget airline and called O’Leary “insufferable” and “an idiot”, after O’Leary rejected the idea of using Musk’s Starlink technology to provide wifi on flights.

At a press conference on Wednesday, O’Leary said he takes “no insult” at Musk’s jibes, and that he is regularly insulted at home by his four teenage children and many others.

He also said Musk is “free” to invest in Ryanair shares, but under EU laws, Musk could not own a majority of a European airline.

Musk is the world’s richest man with an estimated net worth of $769bn (£573bn), and O’Leary runs Europe’s busiest airline. Both are known to court media attention with strong language and provocative statements.

O’Leary said at the press conference that his team is going to X’s office in Dublin to give Musk a free Ryanair ticket to thank him for the “wonderful boost” in publicity he’s had.

“If he wants to call me an idiot, he wouldn’t be the first, and he certainly won’t be the last … But if it helps to boost Ryanair sales, you could insult me all day, every day.”

The squabble between the two intensified after O’Leary called Musk an “idiot” and said using Starlink to provide Ryanair passengers with free wifi would not be cost-effective.

O’Leary added that the cost of installing Starlink would be €250, (£218m) to fit all necessary equipment — and would increase fuel costs by €100m (£87m) per year.

He said he thinks only 5% of Ryanair passengers would pay for wifi, so there would be poor return on investment.

On the prospect of Musk buying the Irish airline, O’Leary said: “We’re a publicly owned company. He’s free to [buy shares] at any time, but non-European citizens cannot own a majority of European airlines.”

“If he wants to invest in Ryanair, we would think it’s a very good investment.”

O’Leary called all social media “a cesspit”, but conceded it was important for Ryanair’s marketing.

The company is known to take an irreverent approach to social media, often mocking customers for complaining about the airline’s cost-cutting measures.

O’Leary said he’d had no direct contact with Elon Musk.

Musk has floated the idea of buying Ryanair several times on X in the past week, but EU-based airlines must be majority owned by people from the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein.

Last week, after German airline Lufthansa announced it would install Starlink on its planes to provide all passengers with free wi-fi, O’Leary said Musk knew “zero” about flight aerodynamics.

The health of detained veteran Ugandan opposition figure Kizza Besigye has “reached a critical and deteriorating state”, his party says, after he was taken overnight to a medical facility in the capital, Kampala.

The 69-year-old politician was driven to a private medical facility under “heavy security”, the People’s Front for Freedom (PFF) party said, without specifying what he is suffering from.

However, prison authorities denied that Besigye’s health was dire, describing his overnight visit to a doctor as a “general check-up”.

Besigye, a former personal doctor to President Yoweri Museveni and one of his longest-standing political rivals, has been in detention since November 2024.

The PFF leader was charged in a military court with treason, which carries the death sentence, as well as illegal possession of a firearm and threatening national security. He denies the accusations.

Besigye, who has run for president against Museveni four times, has been in detention with his associate Obeid Lutale since they were both dramatically seized in Kenya and taken back to Uganda.

Last month, a court denied them bail for the fourth time, saying it was too early to release them as they had not yet entered their pleas.

In a statement on Tuesday, the PFF accused Ugandan authorities of denying Besigye proper medical care, noting that his continued detention amounted to a violation of his basic rights.

“It is a tragedy that a man who has dedicated his life to the health and freedom of others is being denied his own right to medical dignity,” the PFF said, adding: “We hold the regime and the prison authorities fully accountable for his well-being.”

Frank Baine, a spokesman for Uganda’s prisons, denied that Besigye’s health was critical, saying the opposition figure was under standard medical supervision.

“Kizza Besigye receives necessary treatment like other prisoners and he is fine,” Baine said, adding: “This morning he was doing his exercises.”

But the PFF described Baine’s remarks as a “blatant attempt to mask the physical toll” of Besigye’s continued detention, insisting: “Our leader is seriously unwell.”

It demanded that Besigye’s personal doctors and family be granted immediate and unrestricted access to him, so they can provide specialised and independent medical care.

Speaking to a local TV station, Besigye’s wife, Winnie Byanyima, said that her husband had complained of acute stomach pain, a high temperature and he was severely dehydrated.

“He was shaking and unable to walk. He is seriously ill and he refused to be treated by the prison authorities,” Byanyima, who is a respected human rights advocate and head of UNAids, added.

Another opposition leader, Bobi Wine, has expressed concern over Besigye’s health while in detention, saying his condition appears to be deteriorating amid limited access to medical care.

“We stand fully in solidarity with him and pray for his recovery,” Wine said in a post on X.

This is not the first time the veteran opposition leader has been taken ill at Luzira Prison, a maximum security jail in Kampala, where he has been held.

Last February, Besigye was also reported critically ill after he went on hunger strike demanding justice.

Besigye, who last contested the presidency in 2016, has previously accused the authorities of political persecution.

In recent years he has been less active in politics and did not contest the general election earlier this month.

There have been increasing calls by his family, opposition and human rights groups for him to be released on medical grounds.

President Museveni has blamed Besigye and his legal team for the delays in the trial, which he said had resulted in the PFF’s leader’s continued detention.

Museveni, who has held power since 1986, was on Saturday declared the winner of last week’s presidential election with 72% of the vote.

His closest challenger Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, got 25%.

Wine rejected the results as “fake” and has gone into hiding citing threats against his life.