Africa

US and Israel mull relocating displaced Gazans to Africa

Published

4 months ago

March 14, 2025

For now, Gaza lies in ruins

A recent report reveals that the United States and Israel have been exploring options to resettle displaced Palestinians from Gaza in East Africa.

According to reports reaching Diaspora Digital Media, officials from Sudan, Somalia, and Somaliland have been contacted to discuss the possibility of relocating Gazans whose homes were destroyed during the recent war.

However, reports from the three countries indicate that their officials have either rejected the US proposal or are unaware of any contacts or consultations.

This development comes after US President Donald Trump called for forcibly displacing Gazans in another country, preferably Jordan or Egypt.

Trump’s plan, dubbed the “Riviera” scheme, aims to create a “Riviera of the Middle East” by taking over control of the Gaza Strip, possibly with the help of American troops.

The plan has been widely condemned and raises serious legal and moral issues.

The UK, France, Germany, and Italy have endorsed an Egyptian proposal to rebuild Gaza, rejecting Trump’s plan.

$53bn (£41.4 billion) reconstruction plan to rival President Donald Trump’s idea for the US to “take over Gaza” and move out more than two million Palestinians has been approved by Arab leaders at an emergency summit in the Egyptian capital Cairo.

“The Egypt plan is now an Arab plan,” announced the secretary general of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit at the end of this hours-long gathering.

Without referring specifically to President Trump’s ideas, he underlined that “the Arab stance is to reject any displacement, whether it is voluntary or forced”.

Egypt had produced a detailed blueprint, with a 91-page glossy document including images of leafy neighbourhoods and grand public buildings, to counter a US scheme labelled as a “Middle East Riviera” which shocked the Arab world and beyond.

In his opening remarks, Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi also called for a parallel plan alongside the physical reconstruction to move towards what is known as the two state solution – a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

This is widely seen by Arab states, and many others, as the only lasting solution to this perpetual conflict, but it is firmly ruled out by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies.

This new plan proposes that Gaza would be run, temporarily, by a “Gaza management committee under the umbrella of the Palestinian government” comprised of qualified technocrats.

It glosses over the issue of what role, if any, Hamas, will play. There is a vague reference to the “obstacle” of militant groups and said this issue would be resolved if the causes of the conflict with Israel were removed.

Some Arab states are known to be calling for the complete dismantling of Hamas; others believe those decisions should be left up to the Palestinians.

Hamas is said to have accepted it will not play a role in running Gaza but has made it clear that disarming is a red line.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has described President Trump’s plan as “visionary”, has repeatedly ruled out any future role for Hamas, but also for the Palestinian Authority.

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