South Sudan’s government on Wednesday denied it’s talking with Israel over a plan to resettle Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to the East African nation.

According to media reports, the transfer from the Palestinian enclave to South Sudan would be part of a wider effort on Jerusalem’s part to encourage mass migration from war-torn Gaza, which is in ruins amid Israel’s war with Hamas.

“These claims are baseless and do not reflect the official position or policy of the Government of the Republic of South Sudan,” according to a statement from the country’s Foreign Ministry.

Israel was one of the first countries to recognize South Sudan when it declared independence in 2011 and, last month, hosted its foreign minister, Monday Semaya Kumba, during an official visit to Israel and the West Bank.

Despite its oil wealth, South Sudan is struggling to recover from two decades of civil war that killed at least 2 million people from the fighting, famine and disease. A resettlement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip could be part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to move civilians out of the way of a possible Israeli ground invasion.

“I think that the right thing to do, even according to the laws of war as I know them, is to allow the population to leave, and then you go in with all your might against the enemy who remains there,” Mr. Netanyahu said this week in an interview on Israeli TV.

• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.