Posted on 07/16/2025 3:42:02 PM PDT by Twotone
EL AVIV—Israel on Monday began negotiations with several countries it hopes will take in Gazans as part of a mass emigration plan first proposed by President Donald Trump, two Israeli officials with knowledge of the talks told the Washington Free Beacon.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer briefed the rest of the cabinet on the talks in a closed-door meeting on Saturday evening. The leaders said the talks were expected to continue for several days with the goal of securing commitments from the other countries to accept specific numbers of Gazan migrants in exchange for benefits to be provided by the United States.
"This is big," said one of the officials, who like his colleague requested anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. "The immigration plan is moving ahead, and it sounds pretty serious."
Netanyahu and Dermer said in the cabinet meeting that the United States was involved in the talks, but did not specify in what capacity or reveal the names of the other countries or the terms under consideration.
The launch of the talks is the most concrete sign of progress to date on Trump’s "Gaza Riviera" proposal, which would facilitate the exit of civilians from the war-ruined Gaza Strip. Israeli officials have embraced the idea, describing it as key to winning the Gaza war and resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But Arab leaders have refused to cooperate, evoking Palestinian nationalism, and no country has yet to agree to take in migrants from Gaza.
Netanyahu’s office declined to comment.
The United States and Israel reportedly approached Sudan, Somalia, and Somaliland in March about accepting Gazan migrants, though Somalia and Somaliland denied that the outreach occurred.
In a joint press conference at the White House last week, Netanyahu and Trump told the Free Beacon that they believed they were close to a breakthrough.
"We're working with the United States very closely about finding countries that will seek to realize what they always say, that they want to give the Palestinians a better future, and I think we're getting close to finding several countries, and I think this will give again the freedom to choose," Netanyahu said.
In addition to previewing the Gaza emigration talks, Netanyahu and Dermer updated the cabinet on ongoing U.S.-brokered negotiations in Doha between Israel and Hamas, according to the sources. The leaders expressed optimism that the Palestinian terrorist group would agree to a partial ceasefire and hostage release deal that would afterward allow Israel to resume the war. The other ministers, with the exceptions of finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, indicated support for such an agreement.
Hamas in a statement on Monday accused Netanyahu of being "unwilling" to make a deal. Meanwhile, Trump told reporters the hostage-ceasefire talks were going "pretty well" and he expected news "fairly soon."
According to Hebrew media reports, Israeli negotiators on Monday submitted a new map agreeing to greater troop withdrawals from the Morag Corridor in southern Gaza as part of a potential ceasefire.
"From what I understand, Israel has agreed to withdraw from at least part of Morag," the source said. "If at the beginning they were like, ‘We have to stay in Morag,’—and it was who Bibi led that, by the way—now Israel is saying, ‘No … it’s fine, we’ll withdraw at least from parts of it."
Such a withdrawal could undermine Israel’s plan to build a "humanitarian city" in southern Gaza, where Gazan civilians would be separated from Hamas. Israeli military chief of staff Eyal Zamir and other top generals criticized the plan during the cabinet meeting, saying the creation of the humanitarian city would be costly, time consuming, and put soldiers at risk.
"There’s a big rift about Gaza and the humanitarian city," the source said. "The generals don’t want to control any aspect of humanitarian aid. They want nothing to do with it."
During the cabinet meeting, Netanyahu suggested the humanitarian city could be created in a different part of Gaza.
Netanyahu also said Israel had an opportunity to achieve major diplomatic breakthroughs in the Middle East. He said his recent visit to Washington, D.C., had mainly focused on how to advance normalization of relations with Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. But, he cautioned, any Saudi deal would have to wait until after the Gaza war.
Send the Palis to France, let them suffer.
Send them to Ukraine as military aid.
🤣🤣
It’s the only thing that makes sense with his schizophrenic behavior since he bombed Iran and Israel wouldn’t quit.
Trump wanting it to all go away yesterday has me wondering who has him by the short and curlies and why.
And we get to pay for it all.
I guess it makes sense, given that we paid for Isrsael to smash Gaza to pieces... and Syria, and Lebanon, and Iran etc.
Trump is dedicated to making the USA Israel’s water carrier. Their war-bills, problems and enemies become ours.
what the f***
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My gosh, this is insane!
And we, and the EU and UN and gulf states paid to build Gaza into 100s of miles of fortified military bunkers and smuggling tunnels. Billion a year for aid and it probably didn’t give 20% to people it paid for arms and terror infrastructure and weapons and hate preaching school for kids. The whole thing has been a farce and everyone including Israel has know what’s been going on in Gaza for decades and all the career idiot diplomats are still stuck to their failed Oslo plan. Which failed 5 presidents ago!
So now whatever, I guess we pay to smash it to bits. Had to be done, aside from whom should pay for it I’m hard pressed to think what else could be done. Maybe we paid for it because if we didn’t Israel would just carpet bomb the whole place instead of using smarter weapons and give warnings to move away from military targets. Dig up, blow up all those tunnels and bunkers. Close the smuggling tunnels. Now the people with the boobytrapped homes, well the IDF mostly has ways to set the traps off from a distance. So now what? Heck if I know. But Hamas build their trap, they triggered it, and now their plan is playing out. The end game may not be what they had expected. Nor will it likely be anything we expect.
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