(Reuters) -The U.S. and Israel have contacted officials from Sudan, Somalia and its breakaway region of Somaliland to discuss using their territory for resettling Palestinians from Gaza, the Associated Press reported on Friday, citing U.S. and Israeli officials.
Sudan officials said they rejected the proposal by the United States, and officials from Somalia and Somaliland said they were unaware of any contacts, AP reported.
The White House and the U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. The information ministers for Somalia and Somaliland did not answer telephone calls by Reuters seeking comment.
The foreign ministry of Sudan, a country dealing with a devastating civil war that has displaced 12 million of its own people and spread famine, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier this month, Arab leaders adopted a $53 billion Egyptian reconstruction plan for Gaza that would avoid displacing Palestinians from the enclave, in contrast to U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision of a “Middle East Riviera”.
They included the leaders of both Sudan and Somalia.
Trump has proposed a U.S. takeover of the Gaza Strip to reconstruct the destroyed enclave, after earlier suggesting that Palestinians should be permanently displaced.
Trump’s plan reinforced long-standing Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes, and was met with widespread international rejection.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out attacks on communities in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 people hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in the military offensive Israel launched in response, according to Gaza health officials.
(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru, Khalid Abdelaziz in Dubai; Editing by Kim Coghill, Michael Perry and Timothy Heritage)
