The plane landed Thursday morning at O.R. Tambo International Airport, but passengers were not allowed to disembark until late that night after immigration interviews with the Palestinians found they could not say where or how long they were staying in South Africa, South Africa’s border agency said.
It said the 153 Palestinians also did not have exit stamps or slips that would normally be issued by Israeli authorities to people leaving Gaza.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said there was an investigation to uncover how the Palestinians came to South Africa via a stopover in Nairobi, Kenya.
“These are people from Gaza who somehow mysteriously were put on a plane that passed by Nairobi and came here,” Ramaphosa said.
Palestinians being ‘exploited’
The Palestinian Embassy in South Africa said in a statement the flight was arranged by “an unregistered and misleading organization that exploited the tragic humanitarian conditions of our people in Gaza, deceived families, collected money from them, and facilitated their travel in an irregular and irresponsible manner. This entity later attempted to disown any responsibility once complications arose.”
It didn’t name who chartered the flight, but an Israeli army official, speaking anonymously to discuss confidential information, said an organization called Al-Majd arranged the transport of about 150 Palestinians from Gaza to South Africa.
The official said that Israel escorted buses organized by Al-Majd that brought Palestinians from a meeting point in the Gaza Strip to the Karm Abu Salem crossing. Then buses from Al-Majd picked the Palestinians up and brought them to Ramon airport in Israel, where they were flown out of the country.
South African authorities said 23 of the Palestinians had traveled onwards to other countries, without naming those countries, but 130 remained and were allowed in after intervention from South Africa's Ministry of Home Affairs and an offer by an NGO called Gift of the Givers to accommodate them.
“Even though they do not have the necessary documents and papers, these are people from a strife-torn, a war-torn country, and out of compassion, out of empathy, we must receive them and be able to deal with the situation that they are facing,” Ramaphosa said.
Shadowy operation
The secrecy surrounding the flight has raised concern among rights groups, who fear the Israeli government may be forcibly displacing Palestinians from Gaza under such operations.
Israel's foreign ministry referred questions to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli authority responsible for implementing civilian policies in the occupied Palestinian territories. It said the Palestinians on the charter plane left the Gaza Strip after it received approval from a third country to receive them as part of an Israeli government policy allowing Gaza residents to leave. It didn’t name the third country.
Around 40,000 people have left Gaza since the start of the war under the policy.
Israel’s government had embraced a pledge by U.S. President Donald Trump to permanently remove more than 2 million Palestinians from Gaza — a plan almost universally recognised by human-rights organisations, legal scholars and genocide experts as ethnic cleansing. At the time, Trump said they would not be allowed to return.
Trump has since abandoned the proposal and brokered a ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza that would allow Palestinians to remain in the territory.
South African leader Ramaphosa said that it appeared the Palestinians who arrived in Johannesburg were being “flushed out” of Gaza, without elaborating. The comment followed allegations by two South African NGO representatives who claimed that Al-Majd was affiliated with Israel and working to remove Palestinians from Gaza.
Gift of the Givers founder Imtiaz Sooliman, one of those to allege involvement by what he called "Israel’s front organizations," said this was the second plane to arrive in South Africa in mysterious circumstances after one that landed with more than 170 Palestinians onboard on Oct. 28. The arrival of that flight was not announced by authorities.
Sooliman said the passengers on the latest plane did not initially know where they were going and were given no food for the two days it took to travel to Johannesburg.
“They were given nothing on the plane itself and this must be challenged and investigated,” Sooliman said.
South Africa, home to the largest Jewish community in sub-Saharan Africa, has long backed the Palestinian cause and criticised Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
The war has devastated the enclave, killing nearly 70,000 Palestinians and injuring more than 170,000, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Independent estimates suggest the toll may be far higher.
Pretoria filed a case at the International Court of Justice in 2023 accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Palestinian territory.
Jerusalem-based organization
An organization called Al-Majd Europe has previously been linked to facilitating travel for Palestinians out of Gaza. It describes itself on its website as a humanitarian organization founded in 2010 in Germany and based in Jerusalem that provides aid and rescue efforts to Muslim communities in conflict zones.
The website does not list office phone numbers or its exact address. It states that Al-Majd Europe works with a variety of organizations including 15 international agencies, but no organizations are listed and a “will be announced soon” message was displayed in that section on Friday.
Another message that appeared Friday on the website said people were impersonating it to request money or cryptocurrency “under the pretext of facilitating travel or humanitarian aid.” Al-Majd Europe didn't immediately respond to a request for comment sent to an email address given on its site.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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