South Sudan denies reports of talk with Israel on taking Gazans

South Sudan is not in talks with Israel to resettle Palestinians from war-torn Gaza, South Sudan's foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the Associated Press, citing six people with knowledge of the matter, reported that Israel was holding discussions with Juba to resettle Palestinians from Gaza in the East African nation, part of a plan widely condemned as ethnic cleansing.

"These claims are baseless and do not reflect the official position or policy of the Government of the Republic of South Sudan," South Sudan's foreign affairs ministry said in a statement.

Israeli media reported, citing a diplomatic source, that Israel is currently in talks with four other countries, besides South Sudan — Indonesia, Somaliland, Uganda and Libya — in an attempt to find countries who would receive forcibly displaced Palestinians amid Israel's plan to completely occupy Gaza Strip.

“Some of the countries are showing greater openness than before to accepting voluntary immigration from the Gaza Strip,” a diplomatic source told Channel 12, naming Indonesia and Somaliland in particular. However, no concrete decisions have reportedly been made.

Somaliland is a breakaway region of Somalia that is reportedly hoping to secure international recognition through the deal.

In recent days, Israel's military has pounded Gaza City, the first city that the Israeli army plans to seize and occupy in its takeover plans. More than two million people live in the besieged and devastated Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday reiterated a view — also enthusiastically floated by U.S. President Donald Trump — that Palestinians should simply leave Gaza.

Many world leaders have expressed strong distaste for Israel's plan of displacing the Gaza population, which Palestinians say would be like another "Nakba" (catastrophe) when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced out during the creation of Israel in 1948.

In March, Somalia and its breakaway region of Somaliland also denied receiving any proposal from the United States or Israel to resettle Palestinians from Gaza, with Mogadishu saying it categorically rejected any such move.

South Sudan's Foreign Minister Monday Semaya Kumba visited Israel last month and met with Netanyahu, according to the foreign ministry in Juba.

Last month South Sudan's government confirmed that eight migrants deported to the African nation by the Trump administration were currently in the care of the authorities in Juba after they lost a legal battle to halt their transfer.

Since achieving independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan has spent nearly half its life at war and is currently in the grip of a political crisis, after President Salva Kiir's government ordered the arrest of Vice President Riek Machar in March.