The Trump administration and Israel have approached at least two African countries about the possibility of taking in Gazans as part of a broader plan to rebuild the enclave, CBS News reported. They are also interested in bringing Syria into the mix, the outlet added, citing three sources familiar with the matter.
" We should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this, and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death and destruction," Trump said when floating the idea for the first time in early February.
Trump said weeks later that "nobody is expelling any Palestinians" while taking questions from the press along with the Irish prime minister. He has also suggested that Palestinians would be able to decide whether to leave Gaza, but has emphasized that the place is not compatible with life at the moment as most of its buildings have been destroyed and services are practically nonexistent.
Somalia's ambassador to the U.S., Dahir Hassan, told the outlet that there have been no official communications on the matter: "Neither the U.S. administration nor Israeli authorities have approached the Somali government regarding any proposed relocation of Palestinians to Somalia," he said.
Hassan added that "the dissemination of such unverified information risks fueling recruitment propaganda for extremist groups like ISIS and Al-Shabaab, potentially exacerbating security challenges in the region." The Sudanese government didn't reply to a request for comment.
A senior Syrian official said the new government is not aware of any outreach from neither the U.S. nor Israeli governments.
Neither country looks particularly well-suited to receive an influx of population: Sudan is engulfed in a civil war that has seen the displacement of thousands of people, many of them experiencing famine. Somalia is a former failed state where militant Islamist group Al-Shabaab continues to pose a threat. And Syria's three-month-old government is scrambling to achieve some order after toppling Bashar al-Assad, the authoritarian who ruled the country for decades.
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