JOSEPH KRAUSS
Fri, August 15, 2025
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the U.S. Independence Day reception, known as the annual "Fourth of July" celebration, hosted by Newsmax, in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (Ronen Zvulun/Pool Photo via AP)
President Donald Trump has said little about his idea of relocating many of the Gaza Strip’s 2 million Palestinians to other countries since he stunned the world by announcing it in February.
But Israel’s leaders have run with it, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at one point listed it as a condition for ending the 22-month war sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
He and other Israeli officials present it as a humanitarian measure allowing Palestinians to flee war and hardship, and say it should be voluntary. Israel has been in talks with African countries — many of which are themselves wracked by war and at risk of famine — about taking Palestinians in.
Palestinians say there would be nothing voluntary about leaving part of their homeland with no guarantee of return after an occupying power has rendered much of it uninhabitable. Rights groups and much of the international community say it would amount to forcible expulsion in violation of international law.
The issue is likely to take on greater urgency as Israel widens its military campaign to the last parts of Gaza that it hasn’t taken over and largely flattened, and as large numbers of Palestinians flee once again.
“This is our land, there is no other place for us to go,” said Ismail Zaydah, whose family has remained in Gaza City throughout the war, even after much of their neighborhood and part of their home was destroyed. “We are not surrendering,” he said. “We were born here, and here we die.”
Here’s what Israel’s leaders have said, in their own words.
Defense Minister Israel Katz, in a Feb. 6 post on X
“I have instructed the (Israeli military) to prepare a plan that will allow any resident of Gaza who wishes to leave to do so, to any country willing to receive them. ... The plan will include exit options via land crossings, as well as special arrangements for departure by sea and air.”
Netanyahu, addressing a Cabinet meeting on March 30
“Hamas will lay down its weapons. Its leaders will be allowed to leave. We will see to the general security in the Gaza Strip and will allow the realization of the Trump plan for voluntary migration. This is the plan. We are not hiding this and are ready to discuss it at any time.”
Netanyahu, in a public address May 21
Israel will create "a sterile zone in the southern Strip to which the civilian population will be evacuated from the combat areas, for the purpose of defending it. In this zone, which will be Hamas-free, the residents of Gaza will receive full humanitarian assistance.”
“I am ready to end the war — according to clear conditions that will ensure the security of Israel. All of the hostages will return home. Hamas will lay down its weapons, leave power, its leadership, whoever is left, will be exiled from the Strip, Gaza will be completely demilitarized, and we will carry out the Trump plan, which is so correct and so revolutionary, and it says something simple: The residents of Gaza who wish to leave — will be able to leave.”
Netanyahu, in an interview with Israeli media on Aug. 12
“I think that the right thing to do, even according to the laws of war as I know them, is to allow the population to leave, and then you go in with all your might against the enemy who remains there.”
“Give them the opportunity to leave! First, from combat zones, and also from the Strip if they want. We will allow this, first of all inside Gaza during the fighting, and we will also allow them to leave Gaza. We are not pushing them out but allowing them to leave.”
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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Israel is in talks to possibly resettle Palestinians from Gaza in South Sudan
Story by the Associated Press
Thu, August 14, 2025
Palestinian children carry water jugs past tents, housing displaced people, in the Mawasi area in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on August 7. - AFP/Getty Images
Israel is in discussions with South Sudan about the possibility of resettling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to the war-torn East African country, part of a wider effort by Israel to facilitate mass emigration from the territory left in ruins by its 22-month offensive against Hamas.
Six people familiar with the matter confirmed the talks to The Associated Press. It’s unclear how far the talks have advanced, but if implemented, the plans would amount to transferring people from one war-ravaged land at risk of famine to another, and raise human rights concerns.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants to realize US President Donald Trump’s vision of relocating much of Gaza’s population through what Netanyahu refers to as “voluntary migration.” Israel has floated similar resettlement proposals with other African nations.
“I think that the right thing to do, even according to the laws of war as I know them, is to allow the population to leave, and then you go in with all your might against the enemy who remains there,” Netanyahu said Tuesday in an interview with i24, and Israeli TV station. He did not make reference to South Sudan.
Palestinians, rights groups, and much of the international community have rejected the proposals as a blueprint for forcible expulsion in violation of international law.
For South Sudan, such a deal could help it build closer ties to Israel, now the almost unchallenged military power in the Middle East. It is also a potential inroad to Trump, who broached the idea of resettling Gaza’s population in February but appears to have backed away in recent months.
The office of Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Sharren Haskel, said she was arriving in South Sudan for meetings in the first visit there by a senior government official, but she did not plan to broach the subject of moving Palestinians.
South Sudan’s ministry of foreign affairs in a statement called reports that it was engaging in discussions with Israel about resettling Palestinians baseless. “These claims are baseless and do not reflect the official position or policy of the Government of the Republic of South Sudan,” the ministry said in a statement.
A US State Department spokesperson said it doesn’t comment on private diplomatic conversations.
Egypt opposes proposals to resettle Palestinians out of Gaza
Joe Szlavik, the founder of a US lobbying firm working with South Sudan, said he was briefed by South Sudanese officials on the talks. He said an Israeli delegation plans to visit the country to look into the possibility of setting up camps for Palestinians there. No known date has been set for the visit. Israel did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation of the visit.
Szlavik said Israel would likely pay for makeshift camps.
Edmund Yakani, who heads a South Sudanese civil society group, said he had also spoken to South Sudanese officials about the talks. Four additional officials with knowledge of the discussions confirmed talks were taking place on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.
Two of the officials, both from Egypt, told AP they’ve known for months about Israel’s efforts to find a country to accept Palestinians, including its contact with South Sudan. They said they’ve been lobbying South Sudan against taking the Palestinians.
Egypt is deeply opposed to plans to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza, with which it shares a border, fearing an influx of refugees into its own territory.
The AP previously reported on similar talks initiated by Israel and the US with Sudan and Somalia, countries that are also grappling with war and hunger, and the breakaway region of Somalia known as Somaliland. The status of those discussions is not known.
‘Cash-strapped South Sudan needs any ally’
Szlavik, who’s been hired by South Sudan to improve its relations with the United States, said the US is aware of the discussions with Israel but is not directly involved.
Smoke billows during air strikes in central Khartoum as the Sudanese army attacks positions held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) throughout the Sudanese capital on October 12, 2024. - AFP/Getty ImagesMore
South Sudan wants the Trump administration to lift a travel ban on the country and remove sanctions from some South Sudanese elites, said Szlavik. It has already accepted eight individuals swept up in the administration’s mass deportations, in what may have been an effort to curry favor.
The Trump administration has pressured a number of countries to help facilitate deportations.
“Cash-strapped South Sudan needs any ally, financial gain and diplomatic security it can get,” said Peter Martell, a journalist and author of a book about the country, “First Raise a Flag.”
Israel’s Mossad spy agency provided aid to the South Sudanese during their decades-long civil war against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum ahead of independence in 2011, according to the book.
The State Department, asked if there was any quid pro quo with South Sudan, said decisions on the issuing of visas are made “in a way that prioritizes upholding the highest standards for US national security, public safety, and the enforcement of our immigration laws.”
From one hunger-stricken conflict zone to another
Many Palestinians might want to leave Gaza, at least temporarily, to escape the war and a hunger crisis bordering on famine. But they have roundly rejected any permanent resettlement from what they see as an integral part of their national homeland.
A child cries as Palestinians gather to receive a hot meal at a food distribution point in the Nuseirat camp for refugees in the central Gaza Strip on May 24. - Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images
They fear that Israel will never allow them to return, and that a mass departure would allow it to annex Gaza and reestablish Jewish settlements there, as called for by far-right ministers in the Israeli government.
Still, even those Palestinians who want to leave are unlikely to take their chances in South Sudan, among the world’s most unstable and conflict-ridden countries.
South Sudan has struggled to recover from a civil war that broke out after independence, and which killed nearly 400,000 people and plunged pockets of the country into famine. The oil-rich country is plagued by corruption and relies on international aid to help feed its 11 million people – a challenge that has only grown since the Trump administration made sweeping cuts to foreign assistance.
A peace deal reached seven years ago has been fragile and incomplete, and the threat of war returned when the main opposition leader was placed under house arrest this year.
Palestinians in particular could find themselves unwelcome. The long war for independence from Sudan pitted the mostly Christian and animist south against the predominantly Arab and Muslim north.
Yakani, of the civil society group, said South Sudanese would need to know who is coming and how long they plan to stay, or there could be hostilities due to the “historical issues with Muslims and Arabs.”
“South Sudan should not become a dumping ground for people,” he said. “And it should not accept to take people as negotiating chips to improve relations.”
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Israel prepares to move Palestinians to southern Gaza as Israelis urge mass protest over war
NATALIE MELZER
Sat, August 16, 2025
A woman with her face painted in the colors of the Israeli flag takes part in a protest demanding the end of the war, the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Tel Aviv, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)ASSOCIATED PRESS
Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)ASSOCIATED PRESS
People take part in a protest demanding the end of the war, the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Palestinian man carries the body of his 7-year-old nephew, Alaa Al-Toum, who, according to the family, was killed in an Israeli army airstrike last night, during his funeral at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)ASSOCIATED PRESS
People take part in a protest demanding the end of the war, the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Tel Aviv, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NAHARIYA, Israel (AP) — Israel announced Saturday that it is preparing to move Palestinians from combat zones to southern Gaza as plans move ahead for a military offensive in some of the territory's most populated areas.
The Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, COGAT, said the supply of tents to the territory would resume on Sunday. The military said it had no comment on when the mass movement of Palestinians would begin, but Defense Minister Israel Katz said on social media that “we are now in the stage of discussions to finalize the plan to defeat Hamas in Gaza."
Meanwhile, anxious families of Israeli hostages called for a “nationwide day of stoppage” in Israel on Sunday to express growing frustration over 22 months of war.
Families of hostages fear the coming offensive further endangers the 50 hostages remaining in Gaza, just 20 of them thought to still be alive. They and other Israelis were horrified by the recent release of videos showing emaciated hostages speaking under duress and pleading for help and food.
The families and supporters have pressed the government for a deal to stop the war — a call that some former Israeli army and intelligence chiefs have made as well in recent weeks.
A group representing the families has urged Israelis into the streets on Sunday. “Across the country, hundreds of citizen-led initiatives will pause daily life and join the most just and moral struggle: the struggle to bring all 50 hostages home,” it said in a statement.
“I want to believe that there is hope, and it will not come from above, it will come only from us,” said Dana Silberman Sitton, sister of Shiri Bibas and aunt of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were killed in captivity.
She spoke at a weekly rally in Tel Aviv, along with Pushpa Joshi, sister of kidnapped Nepalese hostage Bipin Joshi, a student seized from a kibbutz.
“I miss my best friend,” Pushpa said.
Airstrike kills a baby girl and her parents
An Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed a baby girl and her parents on Saturday, Nasser hospital officials and witnesses said. Motasem al-Batta, his wife and the girl were killed in their tent in the crowded Muwasi area.
“Two and a half months, what has she done?" neighbor Fathi Shubeir asked, sweating as temperatures in the shattered territory soared above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius). “They are civilians in an area designated safe.”
Israel's military said it couldn't comment on the strike without more details. It said it is dismantling Hamas’ military capabilities and takes precautions not to harm civilians.
Muwasi is one of the heavily populated areas in Gaza where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel plans to widen the coming military offensive, along with Gaza City and “central camps” — an apparent reference to the built-up Nuseirat and Bureij camps in central Gaza.
Israel may be using the threat to pressure Hamas into releasing more hostages taken in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war.
Elsewhere, an official at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said it received the bodies of six people who were killed in the Zikim area of northern Gaza, as well as four people killed in shelling.
11 more deaths related to malnutrition
Another 11 malnutrition-related deaths occurred in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the territory’s Health Ministry said Saturday, with one child among them. That brings malnutrition-related deaths during the war to 251.
The United Nations is warning that levels of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza are at their highest since the war began. Palestinians are drinking contaminated water as diseases spread, while some Israeli leaders continue to talk openly about the mass relocation of people from Gaza.
A 20-year old Palestinian woman described as being in a “state of severe physical deterioration” died Friday after being transferred from Gaza to Italy for treatment, the hospital said Saturday.
The U.N. and partners say getting food and other aid into the territory of over 2 million people, and then on to distribution points, remains highly challenging with Israeli restrictions and pressure from crowds of hungry Palestinians.
The U.N. human rights office says at least 1,760 people were killed while seeking aid between May 27 and Wednesday. It says 766 were killed along routes of supply convoys and 994 in the vicinity of “non-U.N. militarized sites," a reference to the Israeli-backed and U.S.-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which since May has been the primary distributor of aid in Gaza.
The Hamas-led attack in 2023 killed around 1,200 people in Israel. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed 61,897 people in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry, which does not specify how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.
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NAHARIYA, Israel (AP) — Israel announced Saturday that it is preparing to move Palestinians from combat zones to southern Gaza as plans move ahead for a military offensive in some of the territory's most populated areas.
The Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, COGAT, said the supply of tents to the territory would resume on Sunday. The military said it had no comment on when the mass movement of Palestinians would begin, but Defense Minister Israel Katz said on social media that “we are now in the stage of discussions to finalize the plan to defeat Hamas in Gaza."
Meanwhile, anxious families of Israeli hostages called for a “nationwide day of stoppage” in Israel on Sunday to express growing frustration over 22 months of war.
Families of hostages fear the coming offensive further endangers the 50 hostages remaining in Gaza, just 20 of them thought to still be alive. They and other Israelis were horrified by the recent release of videos showing emaciated hostages speaking under duress and pleading for help and food.
The families and supporters have pressed the government for a deal to stop the war — a call that some former Israeli army and intelligence chiefs have made as well in recent weeks.
A group representing the families has urged Israelis into the streets on Sunday. “Across the country, hundreds of citizen-led initiatives will pause daily life and join the most just and moral struggle: the struggle to bring all 50 hostages home,” it said in a statement.
“I want to believe that there is hope, and it will not come from above, it will come only from us,” said Dana Silberman Sitton, sister of Shiri Bibas and aunt of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were killed in captivity.
She spoke at a weekly rally in Tel Aviv, along with Pushpa Joshi, sister of kidnapped Nepalese hostage Bipin Joshi, a student seized from a kibbutz.
“I miss my best friend,” Pushpa said.
Airstrike kills a baby girl and her parents
An Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed a baby girl and her parents on Saturday, Nasser hospital officials and witnesses said. Motasem al-Batta, his wife and the girl were killed in their tent in the crowded Muwasi area.
“Two and a half months, what has she done?" neighbor Fathi Shubeir asked, sweating as temperatures in the shattered territory soared above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius). “They are civilians in an area designated safe.”
Israel's military said it couldn't comment on the strike without more details. It said it is dismantling Hamas’ military capabilities and takes precautions not to harm civilians.
Muwasi is one of the heavily populated areas in Gaza where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel plans to widen the coming military offensive, along with Gaza City and “central camps” — an apparent reference to the built-up Nuseirat and Bureij camps in central Gaza.
Israel may be using the threat to pressure Hamas into releasing more hostages taken in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war.
Elsewhere, an official at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said it received the bodies of six people who were killed in the Zikim area of northern Gaza, as well as four people killed in shelling.
11 more deaths related to malnutrition
Another 11 malnutrition-related deaths occurred in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the territory’s Health Ministry said Saturday, with one child among them. That brings malnutrition-related deaths during the war to 251.
The United Nations is warning that levels of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza are at their highest since the war began. Palestinians are drinking contaminated water as diseases spread, while some Israeli leaders continue to talk openly about the mass relocation of people from Gaza.
A 20-year old Palestinian woman described as being in a “state of severe physical deterioration” died Friday after being transferred from Gaza to Italy for treatment, the hospital said Saturday.
The U.N. and partners say getting food and other aid into the territory of over 2 million people, and then on to distribution points, remains highly challenging with Israeli restrictions and pressure from crowds of hungry Palestinians.
The U.N. human rights office says at least 1,760 people were killed while seeking aid between May 27 and Wednesday. It says 766 were killed along routes of supply convoys and 994 in the vicinity of “non-U.N. militarized sites," a reference to the Israeli-backed and U.S.-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which since May has been the primary distributor of aid in Gaza.
The Hamas-led attack in 2023 killed around 1,200 people in Israel. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed 61,897 people in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry, which does not specify how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.
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