US, Israel eye Syria as possible destination for Gaza refugees

Trump administration and the Israeli government have reportedly reached out to three countries, including the new Syrian government, in a bid to find destination for the roughly two million Gazans slated to be resettled under the Trump plan.

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

The United States and the Israeli government have reached out to Syria’s new regime in a bid to secure a destination for the Gaza Strip’s population of roughly two million to resettle, according to a report by CBS News Sunday evening.

Three separate sources cited in the report said that the Trump administration and Israel have expressed interested in facilitating the mass migration of Gazans to Syria and their resettlement in the country.

One source familiar with the administration’s Middle East policy said that the White House has reached out to the government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa (also known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani) who replaced Bashar Assad after his ouster last December, via interlocutors to test Damascus’ openness to taking in Gazans en masse.

The official did not provide details regarding Syria’s response, and a senior Syrian government official said he was unaware of any such outreach by the U.S. or Israel.

Multiple Israeli and American officials told CBS News that the U.S. and Israel have also been in communication with the governments of Somalia and Sudan to broach the possibility of either country taking in Gazan refugees.

Two diplomatic sources confirmed that overtures have been made to the two countries.

However, Dahir Hassan, the Somalian ambassador to the United States, claimed that “neither the U.S. administration nor Israeli authorities have approached the Somali government regarding any proposed relocation of Palestinians to Somalia.”

The government of Sudan declined to comment on the report.

According to a United Nations report in January, over 90% of housing units the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed since the war began following the Hamas invasion of October 7^th.

President Donald Trump on February 4^th publicly proposed permanently relocating the Gaza Strip’s entire population to third-party hosts, while the U.S. be given control of the coastal enclave.