Barack Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu
Barack Obama, Binyamin NetanyahuMiriam Alster/Flash 90

Four former senior US officials claimed Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu offered the Obama administration a two-state solution in which Israel annexed the settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria in exchange for land in northern Sinai, next to Gaza, Haaretz reported.

According to the officials, Netanyahu told then-US President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State John Kerry that he was sure Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi would agree to to the plan. However, when the US looked into the idea, they received a negative response.

Netanyahu's office has denied this report, claiming it "is not accurate."

In November 2017, Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel (Likud) said a Palestinian state could not exist in Judea and Samaria, suggesting northern Sinai as an alternative. Later that same month, Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak denied a report that his country in 1983 had agreed to settle Palestinian Authority Arabs in his country at the United States' request. He also said he had rejected a similar proposal by Netanyahu in 2010, and told him "he should not even dare to think of such an idea."

In 2014, Army Radio reported that current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi offered Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas 160 square kilometers of the Sinai Peninsula adjoining Gaza if the PA would cease demanding Israel return to the pre-1967 borders. Such an offer would have created a Palestinian state five times the present size of Gaza.

However, Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper reported that el-Sisi denied the reports he had offered to establish a Palestinian state in the Sinai Peninsula, and former Israeli ambassador to Egypt Tzvi Mazel, told Arutz Sheva that the reports were a hoax.