Amna Nawaz
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WATCH: ‘There's no deportation’ plan to get Gazans to other countries, Rubio says
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May 20, 2025
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9:52Now PlayingSecretary of State Marco Rubio faced questions from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas and the growing humanitarian crisis mounting in Gaza.
“The U.S. is a very close ally to Israel both in military, security support, certainly in economic support,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said. “Is the administration conveying to the Netanyahu government that encouraging migration through food denial is an unacceptable strategy?”
Rubio said that, while he understood that not enough aid was coming through to the millions of besieged Gazans, “we were pleased to see that aid is starting to flow in again.”
Merkley later asked about reports to relocate Gaza residents to Libya. NBC News recently reported, citing “five people with knowledge of the effort,” that the Trump administration is developing a plan to “permanently relocate up to 1 million Palestinians” from the Gaza Strip to Libya.
“No, there's no deportation,” Rubio said. “What 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? But those will be voluntary decisions by individuals.”
Merkley asked if they are truly voluntary decisions because of the conditions in Gaza.
“You don't want people trapped” in Gaza, Rubio said. “They may want to come back, they may want to live there in the future. But right now they can't. … Yes, we've asked countries, preliminarily, whether they would be open to accepting people – not as a permanent
situation, but as a bridge towards reconstruction.”
Rubio said that “not aware” of Libya as one of the countries that the U.S. approached or is considering.
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