The U.S. and Israel negotiated with three African governments for the relocation of displaced persons from Gaza

The U.S. and Israeli governments contacted officials from three East African governments to raise the use of their territories as destinations for relocating displaced people from the Gaza Strip under U.S. President Donald Trump, who has publicly stated his intention to relocate Palestinians and have the United States take over the territory. Washington and Jerusalem's contact was with Somalia, Sudan, and the separatist region of Somalia called Somaliland.

Different media outlets explained that Sudanese government officials rejected the U.S.-Israeli proposal, while officials from both Somalia and Somaliland commented to both The Associated Press (AP) and to the Financial Times that they had not been part of any meetings discussing the relocation of displaced Palestinians to their territories.

Israel is leading the initiative

Those who did confirm the meetings were different Trump administration officials who, speaking on condition of anonymity, commented to AP that discussions on the relocation of the displaced took place recently, adding that negotiations would be at an early stage, so it was hasty to determine whether these had shown any progress. On the other hand, government officials of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also confirmed the meetings, but did not disclose further details.

The news agency revealed that the U.S.-Israeli rapprochement with the three African countries began in February, just hours after Trump publicly presented alongside Netanyahu his plan to relocate Palestinians and take over Gaza. Similarly, AP detailed that it is Israeli government officials who are leading the discussions and who are putting the most pressure on the three African governments to materialize the plan as soon as possible.

Shortly before the disclosure of these meetings, Israel's finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, commented at a press conference that the Netanyahu government was working hard to determine countries around the world that could receive Palestinian refugees. Smotrich, who is an advocate of what he calls voluntary emigration for Palestinians, added that his country's government was setting up an emigration department as an agency attached to Israel's Defense Ministry.