US asking countries for ‘voluntary’ relocation of Palestinians, says Rubio

WASHINGTON - The United States has reached out to countries about accepting “voluntary” relocations of Palestinians fleeing Israel’s offensive in Gaza, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said May 20.

Israel has again warned the population of Gaza – nearly entirely displaced since the war broke out over the Oct 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas – to move ahead of a new offensive, which comes after

it has blockaded food and supplies

for more than two months.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly

mused about displacing Gaza’s two million people

to make way for reconstruction.

Responding to a question in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr Rubio said: “There’s no deportation.”

“What we have talked to some nations about is, if someone voluntarily and willingly says, I want to go somewhere else for some period of time because I’m sick, because my children need to go to school, or what have you, are there countries in the region willing to accept them for some period of time?” Mr Rubio said.

“Those will be voluntary decisions by individuals,” he said.

Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley replied, if “there is no clean water, there is no food, and bombing is all around you, is that really a voluntary decision?”

Mr Rubio did not say which countries had been approached but denied that Libya was among them.

NBC News, quoting anonymous sources, recently reported that Mr Trump’s administration is working on a plan to relocate permanently up to one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya. AFP