The Trump administration is working to permanently resettle up to 1 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya, a plan the Americans are taking so seriously that they have already discussed with the Libyan leadership.
This is reported by NBC News, citing five people familiar with the initiative. At the same time, the US Presidential Administration denies such plans.
In exchange for Palestinian resettlement, the Trump administration could potentially release billions of dollars to Libya that the United States froze more than a decade ago. However, no final agreement has been reached yet.
The Trump administration is working on a plan to resettle Palestinians in Libya amid tensions between Trump and Netanyahu, in part over Israelʼs new military offensive in Gaza. Israel has been briefed on Trumpʼs plans.
The State Department and the National Security Council did not respond to requests for comment before the story was published. However, a spokesperson said after the story was published that “these reports are not true”.
"The situation on the ground is unacceptable for such a plan. Such a plan was not discussed and makes no sense," he said.
Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said Hamas was unaware of any discussions in the context of moving Palestinians to Libya.
“[The Palestinians] are the sole party that has the right to decide for the Palestinians, including Gaza and the people of Gaza, what to do and what not to do,” he said.
The Hamas spokesman added that the Palestinians are deeply rooted in their homeland, very loyal to it, and ready to fight to the end and sacrifice everything to protect their land, their families, and the future of their children. Israeli government officials declined to comment.
The Libyan government could not be reached for comment. Haftarʼs Libyan National Army did not respond to a request for comment.
The publication writes that one of the ideas discussed by American officials is financial incentives for Palestinians to move. This includes free housing and even scholarships.
However, the exact details and specifics of the plan being discussed by the Trump administration are currently unknown. NBC News notes that such intentions would be expensive and it is unclear how the US wants to pay for its own initiative.
The exact location in Libya where the Palestinians will be relocated from Gaza has not yet been determined. Presidential Administration officials are considering options for their placement, and all possible ways of transporting them from Gaza to Libya are being considered — by air, land, and sea. All options will be expensive and complicated.
For example, the world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, can accommodate about 850 passengers at its maximum capacity. It would take about 1 173 flights to transport 1 million people on such a plane. But Gaza does not have a functioning airport, so people would first need to be transported by ground transport to an airport in another region. If Israel does not allow Palestinians to cross its territory, the nearest available airport is in Cairo, about 320 kilometers from Gaza.
If people were to be transported by land only — for example, to the city of Benghazi in Libya (the second largest after the capital Tripoli, located in the east of the country) — they would have to travel about 2 100 kilometers through Egyptian territory. At the same time, ordinary cars can carry few passengers, and even large intercity buses can accommodate about 55 people.
Another option is sea transport. For example, some of the large ferries that the US used to evacuate civilians across the Mediterranean during the Libyan civil war in 2011 can carry up to 2 000 passengers. But even under ideal conditions — without refueling and with favorable weather — it would take hundreds of trips, each taking more than a day each way, to transport one million people from Gaza to Benghazi.
In addition, NBC News writes that resettling up to a million Palestinians to Libya could greatly complicate the situation in this already unstable country. According to the latest open data from the CIA, Libya currently has an estimated 7.36 million people. If another million were resettled there, it would be like the United States, with its large population, taking in about 46 million new people.
According to a senior administration official, a former US official and another person familiar with the plans, the Trump administration has considered several options for where Palestinians from Gaza could be resettled.
Syria was also mentioned as a possible location after the regime changed there in December and Bashar Assad was overthrown.
What preceded
The plan under discussion is part of Donald Trumpʼs vision for what Gaza should be like after the war. In February, he said the US wanted to "own" Gaza and turn it into something like the "Riviera of the Middle East".
To achieve this goal, Trump believes that Palestinians in Gaza should be permanently relocated to other countries. The idea has surprised even some of his closest aides, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, but has also angered America’s Arab allies and American politicians from both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Additionally, in March, the US and Israel rejected Egyptʼs alternative proposal to rebuild Gaza without resettling its residents.
Israelʼs war in the Gaza Strip
Active hostilities between Israel and Hamas have continued since October 7, 2023, when militants of the Islamist group launched a massive rocket attack on southern and central Israel, invaded the countryʼs territory, killed hundreds of civilians, and took hostages.
In mid-January 2025, Israel and Hamas reached an agreement on a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages. In the first phase of the agreement, Hamas pledged to release 33 Israeli hostages, while Israel pledged to release more than 1 900 Palestinian prisoners and begin withdrawing troops from the Gaza Strip. On March 2, Israel agreed to temporarily extend the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, a transitional period after the end of the first phase, as the parties have not yet been able to agree on how to proceed.
On the night of March 18, Israel resumed hostilities in the Gaza Strip after a two-month ceasefire. The strikes killed the de facto prime minister of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, Isaam Daalis, and four other senior Hamas officials.
Israel has placed responsibility for the resumption of hostilities on Hamas — the militants allegedly rejected all proposals to extend the ceasefire. Therefore, any further negotiations with Hamas, if they are held at all, will only be "under fire" — that is, Israel refuses a ceasefire as a condition for starting new negotiations.
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