US planning to permanently relocate 1 million Palestinians from Gaza to Libya
It comes as Trump pushes his plan to "take over" Gaza and turn it into a "Riviera of the Middle East"
The US government is reportedly in talks with Libyan officials on a plan to permanently relocate up to 1 million Palestinians from Gaza to Libya.
A report by NBC News, which cited unnamed sources, said the Trump administration had discussed the proposal with Libya's leadership.
Washington would reportedly offer Libya billions of dollars of funds that the US froze more than a decade ago in exchange for the resettling of Palestinians.
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No final deal has been reached. A former US official told NBC News that financial incentives, including free housing, may be offered to Palestinians to encourage them to voluntarily leave Gaza.
The White House is also reportedly considering resettling Palestinians in Syria, the report said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has backed a plan by US President Donald Trump to take over Gaza and resettle displaced residents outside the enclave.
Last week, Netanyahu said Israel was working to find third countries willing to take in Palestinians.
“We have put together an administration that will allow them to leave, but the problem with us is one thing - we need receptive countries,” Netanyahu said.
“That’s what we’re working on right now. If you give them the go-ahead, I tell you that more than 50 percent will leave, and I think much more.”
Trump’s proposal has been widely condemned by allies in the Middle East who have warned that relocating Palestinians from Gaza would threaten stability in the region, expand the conflict and undermine the push for a two-state solution. Human Rights Watch said it amounted to “ethnic cleansing.”
Israel launched dozens of airstrikes across Gaza on Friday that killed 108 people, mostly women and children, according to health officials. Gaza's Health Ministry said 31 children and 27 women were killed and hundreds more wounded in the airstrikes.
It comes days after Netanyahu declared that Israeli forces would enter Gaza with “full force," adding that there was “no way” Israel would stop the war.
"In the coming days, we are going in with full force to complete the operation," he said earlier this week. "Completing the operation means defeating Hamas.”
His comments come after Israel’s Cabinet approved a plan to capture all of Gaza and move hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the territory’s south.
In March, Israel blocked the entry of all food, water and other aid supplies to two million people in Gaza, causing what is believed to be the worst humanitarian crisis since the war began in October 2023. The move was widely condemned by aid groups, who have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war.
