The Trump administration is working on a plan to transfer one million Palestinians to Libya.

NBC News reported Friday that five people familiar with the matter told the network that the Trump administration is working on a plan to permanently transfer up to one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya.

Two people familiar with the plans and a former US official confirmed that the plan is under serious consideration, to the point that the administration has discussed it with the Libyan leadership.

These three people added that in exchange for resettling the Palestinians, the administration would likely release billions of dollars in funds frozen by the United States to Libya for more than a decade.

The same three sources reported that no final agreement had been reached, and that Israel had been informed of the administration's discussions.

The network said: "The State Department and the National Security Council did not respond to multiple requests for comment prior to the publication of this article. After publication, a State Department spokesperson told NBC News that these reports were incorrect."

"The situation on the ground is intolerable for such a plan. Such a plan has not been discussed and is meaningless," the spokesman said. Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, said the movement, which governs the Gaza Strip, is unaware of any discussions about transferring Palestinians to Libya.

"Palestinians are rooted in their homeland, deeply committed to it, and willing to fight to the end and sacrifice anything to defend their land, their homeland, their families, and the future of their children," Naim said in response to questions from NBC News. "[The Palestinians] are the only party that has the right to decide what to do and what not to do on behalf of the Palestinians, including Gaza and its residents."

Libya has been plagued by instability and political conflict for nearly 14 years since the outbreak of civil war and the ouster of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi. Libya is struggling to care for its current population, with two rival governments—one in the west, led by Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, and the other in the east, led by Khalifa Haftar—fighting fiercely and violently for control of the country. The U.S. State Department currently advises Americans against travel to Libya "due to crime, terrorism, unexploded landmines, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict."

The number of Palestinians in Gaza who will voluntarily leave to live in Libya remains an open question. The former US official said that one idea discussed by administration officials is offering financial incentives to Palestinians, such as free housing and monthly stipends.

Details of when or how any plan to transfer Palestinians to Libya would be implemented remain unclear, and any attempt to resettle up to a million people there is likely to face significant obstacles.

This effort is likely to be very costly, and it is unclear how the Trump administration will seek to finance it. In the past, the administration has stated that Arab countries will help rebuild Gaza after the war there ends, but it has criticized Trump's idea of permanently resettling Palestinians outside the Strip.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has also looked to Libya as a place to send some of the migrants it wants to deport from the United States. However, a federal judge blocked plans to send a group of migrants to Libya this month.

The transfer of up to one million Palestinians to Libya is likely to increase pressure on this fragile war-torn country.

The most recent publicly available CIA estimate of Libya's current population is approximately 7.36 million. In terms of population, absorbing an additional million people in Libya would be equivalent to absorbing approximately 46 million people in the United States.

The exact location for resettling the Palestinians in Libya has not yet been determined, according to the former US official. Administration officials are studying options for housing them and are exploring all possible methods for transporting them from Gaza to Libya—by air, land, and sea—according to a person directly familiar with these efforts.

Any of these methods are likely to be cumbersome, time-consuming, and expensive.

For example, transporting one million people, at full capacity, would require approximately 1,173 flights on the world's largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380. Since there is no airport in Gaza, transporting anyone from there on flights would first require transporting them to an airport in the region. If Israel is unwilling to allow Palestinians to transit through its territory, the nearest airport would be Cairo, about 200 miles away.

Overland transportation from Gaza via Egypt to Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city, located east of the capital, Tripoli, requires a journey of approximately 1,300 miles. Cars typically carry fewer passengers than other modes of transportation. An intercity bus can accommodate approximately 55 people.

Some of the ferries used by the United States to transport civilians across the Mediterranean to escape the Libyan civil war in 2011 can accommodate up to 2,000 people. If these vessels were used—and assuming no refueling and good weather—it would take hundreds of trips lasting more than a day each way for up to a million people to travel from Gaza to Benghazi.

The plan under discussion is part of President Donald Trump's vision for post-war Gaza, which he said on February 4, during a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that the United States would seek to "own" and rebuild as a "Riviera of the Middle East," according to current US officials, the former US official, and two people directly familiar with these efforts (according to NBC News).

"We're going to take over this piece, develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it's going to be a source of pride for the entire Middle East," Trump said at the time.

In order to achieve his goal of rebuilding Gaza and turning it into the Riviera of the Middle East, Trump said that Palestinians from there must be permanently resettled to (any) other place.

"Gaza is unlivable right now, and I think we need another place. I think it should be a place where people can be happy," Trump said during a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump set a goal of creating "a beautiful area to permanently resettle people in beautiful homes, where they can be happy without being killed or stabbed to death like in Gaza."

"I don't think people should return to Gaza," he said.

Trump's idea, which surprised some of his top aides, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, when he announced it, drew criticism from America's Arab allies and US lawmakers from both parties.

"We'll see what the Arab world says, but as you know, it would be problematic on many levels," said Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally and South Carolina Republican, at the time.

In March, the United States and Israel also rejected an Egyptian proposal to rebuild Gaza without displacing Palestinians.

The administration's work on the Libya plan comes at a time when Trump's relationship with Netanyahu has been strained, partly due to Israel's decision to launch a new military offensive in Gaza.

The Trump administration has considered multiple sites for resettling Palestinians living in Gaza, according to a senior administration official, a former US official familiar with the discussions, and a person with direct knowledge of the efforts.

Syria, under new leadership following the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last December, is also under discussion as a potential resettlement site for Palestinians currently residing in Gaza, according to a person directly familiar with the efforts and a former US official familiar with the discussions.

The Trump administration has taken steps toward restoring diplomatic relations with Syria. Trump announced on Tuesday that the United States would lift sanctions on Syria and met briefly with the new Syrian president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, on Wednesday.