US, Israel see Syria as possible home for relocated Gazans, says report
Sources tell CBS that new government in Damascus has been approached as part of Trump’s Gaza plan, alongside Sudan and Somalia; Netanyahu’s office declines to comment
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Israel and the United States are interested in resettling Gazans in Syria, CBS News reported on Monday, citing “three sources familiar with the effort.”
The report came as Israel is working quietly to advance a controversial plan proposed by US President Donald Trump, in which Gaza’s more than 2 million people would be permanently sent elsewhere.
He has proposed that the US take ownership of the war-torn territory, oversee a lengthy cleanup process and develop it as a real estate project. Analysts and observers have said the ambitious plan is improbable, and the US’s Arab allies have rejected any displacement of the Palestinians from the Strip.
One source said that the White House reached out to Syria’s new government through a third party. Another source “from the region” told CBS that Damascus has been approached with the idea, but a senior Syrian official said the country is not aware of any such outreach.
The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment on the report.
Israeli leaders have consistently stated that they do not trust Syria’s interim president, former jihadist leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group led the effort to topple longtime president Bashar al-Assad in December. Israel occupies a buffer zone along the border in Syria, and carries out airstrikes throughout the country.
Sharaa and his government have projected a moderate image, repeatedly declaring a commitment to protect minorities, including Jews, as well as Druze and Kurds, in the country. The interim leader has objected to Israel’s continued military presence in southern Syria and to its strikes, but he has declined to threaten Israel itself.
In 2017, the UN estimated that 450,000 Palestinian refugees were already living in Syria.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and the Trump administration have also spoken to the Sudanese and Somali governments about accepting resettled Gazans, said CBS.
An Israeli official told The Times of Israel that most of the outreach is coming from the US, but did not lay out which countries have been approached.
Somalia’s US ambassador denied to CBS that the US or Israel approached the country’s government.
According to a recent AP report, US and Israeli officials also reached out to the breakaway region of Somaliland.
Trump proposed his Gaza plan after a US, Egyptian and Qatari-mediated ceasefire halted 15 months of war in the Gaza Strip 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.
In an apparent softening of his proposal to take over the Gaza Strip, Trump asserted last week that the plan does not involve expelling Palestinians.
In the meantime, the complex three-phase ceasefire, which included the release of hostages, has stalled after its first stage amid mutual accusations of violations by Israel and Hamas, though so far full-scale fighting has not resumed.
