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

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

In exchange for resettling 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.

President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated his desire to take over the Gaza Strip, 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.

Last month, Palestinian militant group Hamas said it fired a barrage of rockets at cities in Israel’s south in response to Israeli “massacres” of civilians in Gaza.

However, more than 52,000 Palestinians displaced by Israeli air strikes that have destroyed or badly damaged nearly 450 buildings in the Gaza Strip, the UN aid agency said in 2021.

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