Reports: Morocco, 2 disputed Somalia regions considered as destinations for Gazans
Somaliland and Puntland named as locations under discussion for Gazan relocation per Trump’s plans; Israeli official says any talk of destinations is ‘extremely premature’
Israeli and US officials are reportedly looking into Morocco as well as two autonomous regions of Somalia as potential destinations for relocating Gazans under US President Donald Trump’s proposed plan to move Gazans from the war-torn enclave.
Two reports in recent days have named the three potential destinations.
On Wednesday Channel 12 news reported that Morocco, Puntland and Somaliland were being considered by the White House.
The Telegraph on Thursday cited an Israeli consul general to the US as making a similar statement, though he seemed to indicate it was Israel that was looking into the locations. Israel Bachar, the consul general to the US’s Pacific Southwest region, told The Telegraph: “From what I’m hearing we’re talking about three different states.
“We’re talking about one [in] Morocco, two [in] Somalia and adjacent to Somalia there is another area; it’s called Puntland, and that’s what they’re looking at, maybe, to relocate them to these three places,” Bachar said.
The report also quoted an anonymous Israeli official as saying that any discussion of locations for the relocation of Gaza’s Palestinian population was “extremely premature.”
The Telegraph report quoted Puntland’s deputy information minister Yacob Mohamed Abdalla as saying that his region would happily accept Palestinian refugees, but only if they voluntarily choose to come there.
“There is no reason to deport someone from his country to another country without that person choosing to move,” said Abdalla.
The report also quoted Abdulahi Mohamed Jaha, a former Puntland spokesman, as saying Gazans would “contribute” to the “modernizing” and “security and economic development” of the region, and would improve Puntland’s status in the world.
“It’s best to take advantage of the unplanned opportunities that sometimes arise,” Jaha added.
Trump’s repeated calls for the relocation of most or all of Gaza’s residents have been met with staunch opposition from Arab countries as well as the larger international community.
Morocco normalized relations with Israel in 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords. The Telegraph report said that Rabat did not respond to a request for comment and was unlikely to accept plans for Palestinian resettlement within the country.
Puntland and Somaliland, while internationally recognized as states within the Federal Republic of Somalia, hold varying degrees of autonomy and the local governments of both regions do not recognize the government of Somalia.
Somaliland, which is located along most of Somalia’s Red Sea coastline, has effectively acted as an independent country since the region declared independence in 1991 during Somalia’s decades-long and ongoing civil war, and is in many respects a more stable and functioning state than Somalia itself.
While not recognized by any other country, the region signed a memorandum of understanding with neighboring Ethiopia in 2024 for future recognition in exchange for Ethiopia’s lease of the Red Sea port of Berbera.
The autonomous region of Puntland, on the other hand, has never officially declared independence from Somalia, but after legislative disputes in early 2024, declared that it no longer recognized the government in Mogadishu and would “operate as a state that’s independent from Somalia” until a constitution is passed.
The Channel 12 report speculated that both Somaliland and Puntland could request recognition from Israel in exchange for the absorption of Palestinian refugees, similar to how Jerusalem and the US recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara region as part of the normalization deal.
Channel 12’s political analyst Amit Segal, who is regarded as close to figures in the Israeli government, posted on X that Puntland and Somaliland “seek international recognition,” and Morocco is “concerned with maintaining recognition of its sovereignty over Western Sahara, and all three are countries with an overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim majority.”
The Telegraph quoted Will Brown, an Africa expert at the European Council for Refugees, as saying that the idea of sending Gazans to Somalia was “insane.”
“Somalia is a failed state plagued by jihadist violence. The idea of dumping deeply traumatized people there is hellish,” he added.
