TEL AVIV – Israel is currently in talks with South Sudan about potentially relocating Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to the conflict-ridden East African nation. This initiative is part of Israel’s broader strategy to encourage large-scale emigration from the region, which has been severely affected by its 22-month military campaign against Hamas.
Six sources have confirmed these discussions to The Associated Press. While the current status of these negotiations is not clear, if realized, this plan would involve moving people from one troubled area prone to famine to another, sparking concerns over human rights.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expresses a desire to implement U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision, which includes relocating a significant portion of Gaza’s inhabitants through what Netanyahu describes as “voluntary migration.” Israel has also approached other African countries with similar resettlement proposals.
Many Palestinians, along with human rights organizations and a large segment of the international community, have dismissed these proposals, labeling them as a strategy for forced displacement, which contravenes international law.
For South Sudan, such an agreement could forge stronger connections with Israel, which is now the dominant military force in the Middle East. It might also provide leverage with Trump, who had initially raised the idea of relocating Gaza’s population but seems to have stepped back recently.
Officials from Israel’s Foreign Ministry have refrained from commenting, and South Sudan’s foreign minister has not replied to inquiries regarding the discussions. A spokesperson from the U.S. State Department stated that it does not comment on private diplomatic dialogues.
Egypt opposes proposals to resettle Palestinians out of Gaza
Joe Szlavik, the founder of a U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. is aware of the discussions with Israel but is not directly involved.
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 U.S. 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.
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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Associated Press reporters Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Matthew Lee in Washington, D.C. and Samy Magdy in Cairo, Egypt, contributed
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