Netanyahu said to task Mossad with finding countries to house Gazans
With Trump’s focus elsewhere, report says Israel has reached out to Sudan, Somalia, Indonesia and other nations about taking in Palestinians but the outreach has yet to bear fruit
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has directed the Mossad intelligence agency to identify countries that would be willing to take in large numbers of displaced Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, according to a report Friday.
While several countries have taken in small numbers of sick Palestinians — mainly children — for treatment, no country to date has agreed to host a significant number of Gazans, who themselves appear uninterested in leaving en masse.
Nonetheless, Israel is seeking to advance the removal of Palestinians from Gaza, with some of the biggest proponents being Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir.
The Israeli effort received a tailwind from US President Donald Trump, who last month announced his plan for the United States to take over Gaza and relocate the entire population of two million people. He has since softened the half-baked proposal, clarifying that no Palestinians will be forcibly evicted and denying that the relocation plan would amount to ethnic cleansing.
Israel has also insisted that Gazans would not be forced to leave, but officials have not spelled out how such voluntary emigration could be incentivized and what should happen if it were unsuccessful.
According to the Axios news site, the US has not been actively working to advance Trump’s plan, with Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff focused instead on restoring the ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas.
Israel has tried to fill the vacuum, holding talks with the conflict-plagued East African countries of Somalia and South Sudan, along with Indonesia and other countries, about them taking in Palestinians, Axios reported, citing two Israeli officials and a former US official. Those talks have yet to bear fruit.
Previous reports have named Syria, Sudan and the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland as potential destinations for relocating Gazans that the US and Israel are eying.
The Palestinian Authority and the Arab world has pushed back vehemently against efforts to relocate Gazans, arguing that Palestinians should be allowed to remain in the Strip and that moving them elsewhere will simply spur more conflict and extremism elsewhere.
Israel and the US have argued that Gaza is not a safe place to live after nearly a year and a half of Israeli bombardment targeting Hamas and that Palestinians should be given the opportunity to move elsewhere. But Israel’s refusal to publicly commit to allowing Palestinians who leave the ability to return has led to further questioning of its motives.
Trump first revealed his relocation proposal as Netanyahu visited the White House amid the now-defunct ceasefire and hostage release deal that was mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt. The agreement halted 15 months of war in Gaza that began on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terror group Hamas led over 5,000 attackers to invade southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251, mostly civilians.
The war caused widespread devastation in Gaza, raising the need for a comprehensive rehabilitation plan that Israel has demanded include a new administration to replace Hamas’s rule.
Egypt hurriedly put forward a plan after Arab nations were spooked by Trump’s proposal to rebuild the Strip as a “Riviera of the Middle East.”
The Arab plan envisions an independent committee of technocrats running Gaza for a six-month period before handing off control of the Strip to the Palestinian Authority. It provides for Palestinians to remain in the Strip while it is being rebuilt, as opposed to Trump’s proposal that the entire population be relocated.
The Trump administration has sent mixed signals about the Egyptian plan.
The Times of Israel Community.