For months, Israeli officials have spoken in increasingly strident tones about wanting Palestinians to leave Gaza en masse. Now, a potential destination being discussed is the impoverished, war-torn African nation of South Sudan, part of the broader Israeli push for wholesale emigration from the devastated enclave.

Unable so far to find countries willing to accept large numbers of Gazan refugees from the nearly two-year Israeli campaign against Hamas, Israel has held talks with South Sudan on taking them, according to officials and people briefed on the discussions.

Critics argue that forcibly and permanently removing Gazans from the enclave would amount to ethnic cleansing and a war crime. Noting some Israeli leaders’ hope to conquer Gaza and build Jewish settlements there, they have questioned whether Israel’s long-term vision is merely resettlement or expulsion.

Israeli officials have labeled their policy “voluntary migration,” framing it as a humanitarian move to allow Palestinians who wish to depart to freely do so. Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was not “pushing out” Gazans, but did not say whether they would be allowed to return after the war with Hamas.

South Sudan has publicly denied any involvement. But senior South Sudanese officials have privately discussed the contentious possibility with Israeli officials, according to three Middle Eastern officials and one South Sudanese official briefed on the talks, as well as a lobbyist for the South Sudanese government.

The talks between Israel and South Sudan have yet to see a breakthrough, said the five people, four of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to divulge sensitive details. Nonetheless, they play to the interests of both sides: Israeli officials hope as many Palestinians as possible will leave Gaza, while South Sudan wants to curry favor with President Trump.

In February, Mr. Trump endorsed in principle the removal of Gaza’s roughly two million people. He later appeared to move on from the idea, after Arab allies like Egypt and Jordan objected fiercely to it, but he never fully renounced it.

While Mr. Netanyahu has been more restrained in his public comments, his far-right allies — who support perpetual Israeli rule in Gaza — have enthusiastically embraced the call for Palestinians to leave.

In May, Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister, said Gazans would hopefully soon be displaced “to third countries.” He also said last month that Gaza is “an inseparable part of the land of Israel.”

Gila Gamliel, a minister in Israel’s security cabinet, said in a televised interview that “1,700,000 Palestinians should leave the Gaza Strip.” A less prominent government minister, Amichay Eliyahu, said approvingly last month that Israel was “driving out the population” of Gaza, a position that the prime minister’s office distanced itself from.

Many modern wars have seen millions of refugees flee to neighboring countries. But the vast majority of Gazans have no way out of the enclave. Egypt, which allowed tens of thousands to enter during the first nine months of the war, is no longer an option for most people. Other countries are focused on evacuating small numbers of the sick and wounded.

Since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the Gaza war, Israel has urged countries — particularly Egypt — to take in masses of Gazan refugees, but to no avail. Some nations have voiced the fear that Israel would block Palestinians from going back, making them permanent refugees — a fear shared by Palestinians themselves.

Human rights groups say what Israel labels “voluntary” migration would be anything but. The Israeli campaign against Hamas has razed much of the Gaza Strip, leaving most of its people displaced, hungry and impoverished, with little access to shelter, sanitation, water, health care or schools, and in constant fear for their lives.

“There’s nothing voluntary when you’re making Gaza unlivable, when you are destroying the civilian infrastructure that is necessary for civilian life,” said Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “Continuing to force people out is not voluntary.”

More than 60,000 people have been killed in Israel’s campaign against Hamas, according to local health officials, who don’t say how many were combatants. The war began with the deadly Hamas-led attack, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 as hostages.

At least some Palestinians say they would be willing to leave Gaza after nearly two years of hunger, fear and bombardment, though many of them also have searing family histories of fleeing or being expelled during the wars surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948, and never being allowed to return.

But many would likely hesitate to head for war-torn South Sudan, which has also struggled with ethnic violence, famine and corruption since its inception in 2011. Palestinians might also find a wary reception in South Sudan, a largely Christian and animist nation that fought hard to gain independence from its largely Muslim and Arab neighbor, Sudan.

“I would leave Gaza to save my kids from this horrible situation,” said Jalal al-Homs, who is sheltering in a tent in southern Gaza with his wife and four children. “But to go to South Sudan? That we couldn’t accept.”

By working with Israel, South Sudan hopes Israeli officials will help lobby the Trump administration to lift a visa ban on its citizens, as well as remove an arms embargo and sanctions against Benjamin Bol Mel, the powerful vice president widely seen as the country’s possible next leader.

In April, the Trump administration revoked all visas for South Sudanese people to travel in the United States, after accusing South Sudan of refusing to move quickly to repatriate its citizens who were being deported. In July, South Sudan agreed to accept eight deportees from the United States, only one of them South Sudanese.

But taking in large numbers of Gazans would be a far more fraught course for the country. South Sudan is grappling with mounting political instability and deepening humanitarian crises.

The talks between Israel and South Sudan began earlier this year, said Joseph Szlavik, the founder of a lobbying firm working with the government of South Sudan, who said he had discussed the subject with South Sudanese officials. The news of the talks between the two sides was first reported by The Associated Press.

South Sudan is considering the proposal, but its officials fear being left to shoulder the financial burden of taking care of a large number of Palestinian refugees, said Mr. Szlavik. “The South Sudanese are wondering who will pay,” he added.

On the South Sudanese side, Monday Semaya K. Kumba, the country’s foreign minister, has spoken with Israeli officials on the subject, the Middle Eastern and South Sudanese officials said.

South Sudan’s government spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. South Sudan’s foreign ministry denied the talks with Israel, calling reports of them “baseless.”

Those reports prompted backlash in South Sudan. The chairman of South Sudan’s parliamentary committee on foreign affairs told local news media that he would summon Mr. Kumba to demand answers.

“Accepting the resettlement of Palestinians in South Sudan undermines and belittles the political faith, position and identity of Palestinians in having their own state,” said Edmund Yakani, the executive director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, a South Sudanese rights group, who said he discussed the matter last month with Foreign Ministry officials.

No matter how urgent South Sudan’s need for international help, the government should not “use the issue of Palestinians as negotiating chips to improve their foreign relations,” Mr. Yakani added. “This is ethnic cleansing that we are supporting.”