Indonesia will convert a medical facility on the uninhabited island of Galang to treat around 2,000 wounded Palestinians from Gaza before returning them to the strip, the Indonesian presidential spokesman Hassan Nasibi announced on 7 August.

“Indonesia will provide medical assistance to approximately 2,000 Gazans who have become victims of the war,” Nasibi said, adding that the patients will be returned to Gaza after their recovery. He stressed that this was not a displacement operation.

The Galang Island facility, located off Sumatra and south of Singapore, will also temporarily house family members of the wounded. “No one is currently living there,” Nasibi said. He did not provide a timeframe for the operation and referred further questions to the Foreign and Defense Ministries, which have not responded.

The announcement follows months of scrutiny over Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s previous offer to shelter wounded Palestinians. That proposal drew criticism from senior Indonesian clerics, who warned it resembled US President Donald Trump’s earlier plan to transfer Palestinians from Gaza permanently.

At the time, Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry said it “strongly rejects any attempt to forcibly displace Palestinians.”

According to Axios, Israel’s Mossad chief, David Barnea, visited Washington in mid-July to seek US support for forcibly relocating Palestinians from Gaza to countries including Indonesia, Libya, and Ethiopia.

The proposal was framed as voluntary, but legal experts in both countries warned of violations of international law.

Earlier in March, AP reported that Israeli and US officials approached Sudan, Somalia, and Somaliland to take in Palestinians. Sudan reportedly rejected the offer, while the others said they were unaware of any such talks.

A Financial Times investigation in August revealed that Boston Consulting Group, acting on behalf of Israeli business interests, modeled a plan to displace and forcibly relocate up to 25 percent of Gaza’s population to third countries, including Somalia, Jordan, and the UAE.

The consultancy later disavowed the plan.

Under international law, forced displacement and coerced population transfers constitute war crimes. Human rights advocates and UN officials have condemned such proposals as ethnic cleansing.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has publicly called for the population of Gaza to be displaced to foreign countries as part of what he described as a “victory plan.”