Sudanese officials say that a US request to accept displaced Palestinians was rejected - but the regime has made unpopular deals with Israel before
The US and Israel are reportedly courting three African countries to accept Palestinians displaced from Gaza in a version of US President Donald Trump’s “Gaza Riviera” plan, as talks over a new ceasefire and hostage deal stall.
Hamas offered on Friday to release a living US-Israeli hostage and the bodies of four others, but Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed this as “psychological warfare.”
The US envoy Steve Witkoff has reportedly proposed a deal that would see more Israeli hostages freed and the extension of a temporary truce, but without an Israeli commitment to end the war, which is Hamas’s central demand.
With a deadline for talks on a new agreement expiring and Israel preparing for a return to hostilities – it is already blocking humanitarian aid and power from reaching Gaza – Israel and Washington are said to be advancing radical new plans to transfer Palestinian civilians abroad, a move condemned by allied governments and human rights groups.
‘Secret initiative’ to send Gaza residents to East Africa
US and Israeli representatives made contact with counterparts in Sudan, Somalia, and Somaliland shortly after Trump announced a plan to transfer the population of Gaza abroad at a White House meeting with Netanyahu in February, Associated Press reported on Friday, citing US, Israeli, and Sudanese officials.
The “secret diplomatic initiative” involved talks with the East African territories (Somaliland is not an internationally recognised country) accepting Palestinians displaced from Gaza, with Israel “taking the lead.”
Sources did not say how far the talks had progressed, or what inducements were offered to the potential host governments.
Sudanese officials told Associated Press the Trump administration had contacted Kharthoum’s military regime over a plan to transfer Palestinians to the country, but the proposal was rejected.
The White House and Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office both declined to comment.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 4, 2025. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
Donald Trump announced plans to transfer the population of Gaza abroad at a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House (Photo: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)
Could plan for the Middle East succeed in Africa?
Trump originally claimed that displaced Palestinians would be relocated to Egypt and Jordan, prompting fierce opposition from those countries.
Alistair Burt, former Middle East minister, suggested supporters of the incendiary proposal may see the African countries as easier targets.
“America and Israel will know the three states are poor and therefore exploitable, and – they presume – up to being bought,” he said. “But it still fails to comprehend the enormity of displacement to the Palestinian community, nor the practical problem of how to deal with those who may not be willing to be bribed to go.”
“It may also suggest that they realise that Egypt and Jordan are just not going to take Palestinians as the US originally thought.”
Israeli leaders have outwardly remained committed to Trump’s plan, which Netanyahu called a “bold vision.” Defence Minister Israel Katz has announced the creation of a new military task force for the “migration” of Gaza residents.
The embattled Sudanese regime, engaged in a war for the country and its own survival that has killed tens of thousands, could be a pliable partner despite public denials, suggests Kholood Khair, a Sudanese political analyst and founder of Confluence Advisory, a “think and do tank” in Khartoum.
“I would say it would be improbable under normal circumstances but the war has caused the political calculus of the belligerents, including the armed forces, to shift,” she said. “I could see a situation where they would get desperate enough to consider a deal like this.”
A deal with Israel would be domestically unpopular, but so were the Abraham Accords to normalise relations between Israel and Sudan signed by the regime led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, noted Khair.
The US has significant leverage over Khartoum through potential security assistance, she added, noting a recent meeting between Sudanese officials and Evangelical leader and Trump ally Franklin Graham.
There is also potential for a “broader deal” involving the United Arab Emirates, Khair believes, which could involve the UAE suspending support for the Sudanese regime’s main enemies, the Rapid Support Forces, partly in exchange for cooperation on displaced Palestinians.
JABALIA, GAZA - FEBRUARY 5: Palestinians struggle to maintain their daily lives among the rubble of destroyed buildings as a result of Israeli attacks, while daily life continues under difficult conditions after the ceasefire agreement came into force at Jabalia refugee camp in Jabalia, Gaza on February 04, 2025. (Photo by Khalil Ramzi Alkahlut/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Palestinians among the rubble of destroyed buildings in Jabalia, north Gaza (Photo: Khalil Ramzi Alkhalut/Anadolu/Getty)
Gaza displacement rejected as impractical and illegal
Trump’s original proposal was condemned by many foreign governments – including allies – and human rights groups, several of which described the plan as “ethnic cleansing.”
Arab leaders convened a summit in Cairo earlier this month which endorsed an alternative £41bn plan for reconstruction of Gaza and a new technocratic Palestinian government of the territory.
Former Trump defence official Michael Mulroy, who now leads a company providing humanitarian services in Gaza, said plans for transferring residents of the strip were “impractical in terms of how it would be carried out and unlawful under international law if this population is forced out of Gaza.”
Ken Roth, founder of Human Rights Watch, said any plan “to forcibly deport two million Palestinians from Gaza would be a massive war crime, arguably a crime against humanity, in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits deporting residents from occupied territory.”
To send residents of devastated Gaza to another war-torn territory such as Sudan would mark another grim twist for Trump’s Middle East policy, added.
“After promising to move the Palestinians to supposedly beautiful new housing, which doesn’t lessen the war crime involved, Trump, it turns out, is fishing for any place to send them, including some of Africa’s poorest, most devastated, war-torn nations,” said Roth.
“He isn’t even pretending that this would be better for them, he just wants to ‘solve’ the Israeli-Palestinian problem by getting rid of the Palestinians.”