Trump and Netnayahu meet in the Oval Office in April.AP
Citing “two sources with knowledge of the issue,” the report said Barnea met with US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and named Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Libya as countries that had shown initial openness to receiving Palestinians.
Barnea reportedly urged the US to offer incentives to those countries and help Israel secure their agreement.
One source told Axios that Witkoff was non-committal, and it remains unclear whether the Biden administration will support the plan.
In early February, US President Donald Trump sparked international outrage when he proposed that the United States “take over” Gaza and forcibly displace more than two million Palestinians to Jordan, Egypt, and other Arab countries—an idea he described as turning Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
At the time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s proposal, telling reporters that Tel Aviv was willing to carry it out unilaterally: “Trump never said he wants American troops to do the job. Guess what? We'll do the job."
However, US officials said the White House later backed away from the plan after facing strong resistance from Arab nations.
Egypt has repeatedly rejected any plan involving the forced displacement of Palestinians, emphasizing that it will not be party to “liquidating the Palestinian cause,” even temporarily.
President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi responded swiftly to Trump's colonialist-style proposal: “Egypt cannot participate in the injustice of displacing the Palestinian people.”
Palestinians themselves have insisted they do not wish to leave their homeland. Additionally, international rights groups condemned the proposal as a violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions, amounting to ethnic cleansing.
Following opposition from Arab and European countries, the US and Israel reportedly discussed relocating Palestinians to Sudan, Somalia, and its breakaway region of Somaliland, according to US and Israeli officials cited by the Associated Press (AP).
Israeli officials said Washington told Netanyahu that if Israel were to proceed, it would first need to find countries willing to accept large numbers of Palestinians from Gaza.
That responsibility, the report added, was then handed to Mossad.
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