Israel wants to send Gazans to South Sudan
An Israeli delegation is reportedly planning to visit South Sudan to explore the possibility of establishing camps for Palestinians, the Associated Press reported, following a visit to Israel by South Sudan's deputy foreign minister last week.
Israel has repeatedly come under fire for raising the possibility of relocating Gazans from their homeland over fears of ethnic cleansing. Moving them from one land already ravaged by war and famine to another will only amplify that concern.
News of the possible South Sudan deal broke after Benjamin Netanyahu went on Israeli television to revive discussion about relocating civilians from the strip.
The idea was first proposed by Donald Trump, the US president, in February, who said the population should be removed and Gaza completely redeveloped – part of what he envisaged as a 'riviera' in the Middle East.
The Israeli government has floated the idea of relocation, but always said that relocation should be voluntary.
'Give them the opportunity to leave, first of all, combat zones, and generally to leave the territory, if they want,' said Mr Netanyahu on Tuesday, in comments that did not mention South Sudan.
'We will allow this, first of all within Gaza during the fighting, and we will certainly allow them to leave Gaza as well.'
He likened the situation to Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan, all of which had seen large exoduses as a result of war.
Numerous foreign capitals and international bodies have previously warned against the plan, with some questioning if resettlement from Gaza could be considered genuinely voluntary, given the catastrophic damage to infrastructure and the dire humanitarian situation.
They have also voiced fears that voluntarily displaced Palestinians would not be allowed to return, citing comments made by Mr Netanyahu's ultra-nationalist coalition partners calling for the re-establishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza.
A feature of the recent Operation Gideon's Chariot has been the wide-scale demolition of residential buildings, and it is likely the same tactic will be used in the upcoming assault on Gaza City, confirmed last week.
Forcibly displacing a population could be considered a war crime.
Associated Press reported multiple sources as confirming the current talks between Israel and South Sudan.
Joe Szlavik, founder of a US lobbying company working for South Sudan, also confirmed that he had been briefed by South Sudanese officials on the talks.
He said an Israeli delegation plans to visit the country to investigate the feasibility of setting up camps.
Sharren Haskel, Israel's deputy foreign minister, is currently visiting the East African country. The first official visit by an Israeli government representative.
In a statement, she said 'while the international community is focused solely on Gaza, South Sudan is facing a real humanitarian crisis and the threat of genuine famine'.
Obvious destinations
As neighbours with formal relations with Israel, Egypt and Jordan would be the most obvious destinations for any departing Palestinians.
However, both have staunchly opposed any such scheme, despite significant pressure from Mr Trump.
Israel is said to have held talks with Indonesia, Libya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Somaliland about the possibility of accepting Gazans, but it was reported that these had not borne fruit.
South Sudan is in desperate need of foreign cash to help itself rebuild after years of instability and war with Sudan, its Arab-dominated neighbour.
It has been reported that they accepted help from Israel's Mossad spy agency during their civil war with Khartoum.
Sources said that any camps for displaced Gazans would be paid for by Israel.
Emigration inevitable
South Sudan also badly wants Mr Trump to lift the US travel ban on the country.
Egypt has reportedly lobbied South Sudan not to co-operate with Israel on the scheme.
In recent months, Mr Trump has sounded sanguine about the chances of his riviera scheme coming off, with all current the indications being that his administration now favours an Arab-led temporary administration for Gaza, once the war has ended.
Shany Mor, a former director for foreign policy on Israel's National Security Council, now a lecturer at Reichman University, said that a certain amount of emigration was inevitable.
'When this war ends, Gaza will be in such a terrible state that it is impossible to see how it even begins to recover without some large, even temporary migration,' he said.
'It won't be the agreed policy of the Arab administration, but it will definitely happen to a limited but significant extent.'
Palestine promise
Mr Mor said he believed the prospect of Israel-overseeing a relocation scheme with South Sudan 'extremely unlikely'.
The Jewish state's international reputation has taken a battering in recent weeks over the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Britain, France and a number of other prominent allies of Israel have promised to recognise Palestine, moves that have been branded a reward for terrorism.
Christopher Luxon, the prime minister of New Zealand, said on Wednesday that Mr Netanyahu had 'lost the plot', describing the planned occupation of Gaza City as 'utterly unacceptable'.
Meanwhile, the UN has put Israel and Russia 'on notice' over conflict-related sexual violenc e accusations.
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Daily Mail
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The battle for Bibi's political life: Hours before strikes on Iran, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu was in court fighting charges of bribery and fraud. So can the ultimate survivor defeat his enemies on the battlefield and in the courtroom?
Israel 's embattled prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut a confident and determined figure as he faced the foreign media in a rare live press conference held in his Jerusalem office late afternoon on Sunday. He began against a backdrop of a screen that read, 'Open your eyes to Hamas lies'. It was vintage 'Bibi': when your back's against the wall, come out with all guns blazing. Thousands of his fellow citizens may have been protesting in the streets against his plan to take over Gaza City but Netanyahu was going ahead regardless. This uncompromising approach has marked his attitude to the war from day one and is all the more remarkable given that he has simultaneously been fighting on a second, and far more personal, front. Israel's wartime leader has spent many key hours of the last few months in the austere surroundings of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv District Court rooms, where he is on trial for bribery, fraud and 'breach of trust'. In the days before he gave the order to strike Iran 's nuclear facilities in June, Netanyahu was not to be found hunkered down with close advisers at his official residence in Jerusalem. He had not cleared his schedule for final meetings with the top brass, going over every detail ahead of the most high-stakes military operation of his long and colourful tenure. Instead, he spent many of those critical final hours sitting in a courtroom. 'He came to court but he couldn't talk,' says a source close to Netanyahu, who described the PM as uncharacteristically tongue-tied during the proceedings on June 11, after the Israeli PM had refused to vary his schedule in case Tehran took it as a signal that an attack was imminent. 'He hadn't slept, but he had to play everything normal,' the source adds. 'It was surreal,' another senior Israeli official tells the Daily Mail. 'I mean, there was even something about a Bugs Bunny doll bought for his son 30 years ago or something equally absurd.' 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Spectator
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