US working on plan to expel one million Palestinians from Gaza to Libya - report

The Trump administration is working on a plan to permanently expel and relocate as much as one million Palestinians from Gaza to Libya, NBC News has reported, citing five people with knowledge of the matter.

Citing two people with direct knowledge and a former US official, NBC also reported on Friday that the plan is under serious enough consideration that the US has discussed it with Libya's leadership.

In exchange for expelling the Palestinians, the administration would release to Libya billions of dollars of funds the US froze more than a decade ago, according to NBC and citing the same three people.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated his desire to take over Gaza, telling a business roundtable in Qatar that the US would "make it a freedom zone" and arguing there was nothing left to save in the Palestinian territory.

Trump first pitched his Gaza idea in February, saying the US would redevelop it and force Palestinians to move elsewhere.

The plan drew global condemnation, with Palestinians, Arab nations and the UN saying it would amount to ethnic cleansing.

Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, said that Hamas was not aware of any discussions about expelling Palestinians.

"Palestinians are very rooted in their homeland, very strongly committed to the homeland and they are ready to fight up to the end and to sacrifice anything to defend their land, their homeland, their families, and the future of their children," Naim told NBC News.

"[Palestinians] are exclusively the only party who have the right to decide for the Palestinians, including Gaza and Gazans, what to do and what not to do."

'Humanity is abandoned'

The crisis in Gaza has reached one of its darkest periods, as Israel blocks all food and supplies from entering the territory and continues an intensifying bombardment in its genocidal war.

Humanitarian officials caution that famine threatens to engulf the enclave.

Doctors say they are out of medicine to treat routine conditions.

Israeli leaders are threatening an even more intense ground invasion.

The military is preparing for a new organisation with US backing to take over aid delivery, despite alarms raised from humanitarian groups that the plans won't meet the massive need and could place restrictions on those eligible.

It's unclear when operations would begin or who would fund them.

"This is the deadliest and most destructive phase of Israel's war on Gaza, yet the world has turned away," said Bushra Khalidi, policy lead for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory at the humanitarian nonprofit Oxfam.

"After 19 months of horror, Gaza has become a place where international law is suspended, and humanity is abandoned."

Most of Gaza's 2.3 million population is internally displaced as Israel widens its genocide that has since October 2023 killed nearly 64,000 Palestinians — including some 11,000 feared buried under debris of bombed homes — and ravaged much of the enclave.