Category World News

Earlier this week, a flight carrying 153 Palestinians from Gaza landed in South Africa without documentation. The passengers were stuck on the plane for 12 hours before the South African authorities, who claimed they had not been informed by Israelis about the deportation flight, allowed them to disembark on humanitarian grounds.

The Palestinians on board had paid between $1,500 and $5,000 to a company called Al-Majd Europe to leave Gaza. The operation is run by a few Palestinians on the ground in coordination with the Israeli occupation authorities. At least two other such flights had already been made since June this year.

This is the latest scheme Israel is deploying to depopulate Gaza – a longstanding goal of its apartheid regime that goes back to the early 20th century.

Since the beginning of the Zionist movement, Palestinians have been perceived as a demographic obstacle to establishing a Jewish state. In the late 19th century, Theodor Herzl, one of the founding fathers of Zionism, wrote that the displacement of Arabs from Palestine must be part of the Zionist plan, suggesting that poor populations could be moved across borders and deprived of employment opportunities in a quiet and cautious manner.

In 1938, David Ben-Gurion, a key Zionist leader who would later become Israel’s first prime minister, made clear he supported forced “relocation” and saw nothing “immoral” in it. Part of this vision was carried out 10 years later during the Nakba of 1948, when more than 700,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes in what Israeli historian Benny Morris has called “necessary” ethnic cleansing.

After 1948, Israel continued efforts to displace Palestinians. In the 1950s, tens of thousands of Palestinians and Palestinian Bedouins were forcibly transferred from the Naqab (Negev) desert to the Sinai Peninsula or Gaza, which was under Egyptian administration at that time.

After the June 1967 war, when Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it adopted a strategy of what it called “voluntary migration”. The idea was to create harsh living conditions to pressure residents to leave, including demolishing homes and reducing employment opportunities.

In parallel, “emigration offices” were established in the refugee camps of Gaza to encourage people who have lost any hope of return to their homes to leave in exchange for money and travel arrangements. Israel also encouraged Palestinians to go work abroad, especially in the Gulf.  The price Palestinians had to pay for leaving was never being allowed to come back.

After October 7, 2023, Israel saw another chance to carry out its plan of ethnically cleansing Gaza – this time through genocide and forced expulsion. It thought it had the necessary international sympathy and diplomatic capital to carry out such an atrocity, as statements by various Israeli officials, such as ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, show. They even came up with the so-called “General’s Plan” to fully depopulate northern Gaza.

The new scheme for forcing Palestinians out of Gaza fits well into this historical pattern. What distinguishes it, however, is that Palestinians are made to pay for their own forced displacement and their desperation is exploited by Palestinian collaborators who seek to make easy profit. This, of course, is meant to further the financial depletion of the Palestinian population and create more internal fissures and tensions.

This scheme, like previous ones, also has the central feature of denying Palestinians return. None of the passengers on the plane received Israeli exit stamps on their passports, which was the reason the South African authorities struggled with the admission process. Having no legal record of leaving the Israeli-occupied territory of Gaza means these people are automatically classified as illegal migrants and have no possibility of returning.

It is important here to clarify why Israel is allowing these flights to take place while impeding the evacuation of ill and injured Palestinians and students accepted in foreign universities. These exits of patients and students would be legal, and they imply the right to return – something Israel does not want to allow.

That there are Palestinians willing to fall for this flight scheme is unsurprising. Two years of genocide have driven the people of Gaza to unimaginable desperation. There are that many Gaza residents who would willingly board those planes. And yet, Israel cannot fly us all to South Africa.

Through decades of Zionist occupation, Palestinians have persevered. Palestinian steadfastness in the face of wars, sieges, home raids, demolitions, land theft, and economic subjugation confirms that the Palestinian land is not merely a place to live, but a symbol of identity and history that people are not willing to give up.

In the past two years, Israel has destroyed the lives and homes of two million Palestinians. And even that has failed to kill the Palestinian spirit and drive to hold onto the Palestinian land. The Palestinians are not flying out; we are here to stay.

On Thursday morning, a chartered plane carrying 153 Palestinians from war-torn Gaza – many without the required travel documents – landed at an airport near Johannesburg, leaving South African officials “blindsided”.

After nearly 12 hours of scrambling, the group was allowed to disembark into the care of a local charity organisation.

More details have emerged about the scheme run by “Al-Majd Europe”, through which activists argue Israel is advancing its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.

The Palestinian passengers were charged a hefty sum of money by the organisation, which says on its website that it coordinates “evacuations from conflict zones”.

Here is everything we know about the group’s transit so far and who’s behind Al-Majd Europe.

What happened in South Africa?

The plane full of people sat on a runway for nearly 12 hours while South African authorities tried to figure out why they did not have exit stamps or slips from when they left Gaza, according to officials from South Africa’s border agency.

They were also not sure when asked by immigration where they would stay or how long they planned to be in South Africa.

The government allowed them to leave the plane after charity organisation Gift of the Givers offered to accommodate them.

Officials said 23 Palestinians flew to other countries, without adding any more details.

“These are people from Gaza who somehow mysteriously were put on a plane that passed by Nairobi and came here,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Friday.

He added that “it does seem like they were being flushed out” of Gaza. South Africa’s intelligence services are investigating the incident.

What is the company that flew them to South Africa?

Behind the flight is Al-Majd Europe, which is accused of acting in coordination with Israeli authorities.

Loay Abu Saif, who fled Gaza with his wife and children to Johannesburg, told Al Jazeera on Friday that he had heard about it through a social media advertisement.

The Al-Majd Europe website says it was founded in 2010 in Germany, and the homepage has a pop-up warning about individuals pretending to be its agents, sharing phone numbers of “legitimate representatives”.

But the site itself has no address or phone number, providing just a location in Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem. However, Al Jazeera was not able to find an office there.

The website domain, almajdeurope.org, was only registered in February this year, while several links on the site lead nowhere. The email listed, info@almajdeurope.org, bounces back an automated message saying it does not exist.

Namecheap, which registered the domain, has been cited in several cybersecurity reports on online fraud because of its low-cost, easy sign-up process.

Al Jazeera learned that many people were told to pay via bank transfers to personal, not organisational, accounts.

Does Al-Majd Europe do what it says it does?

Among the links that work is a page with four “Impact Stories”.

One post about “Mona”, a 29-year-old from Aleppo, Syria, is dated March 22, 2023, even though the website was only registered 10 months later.

The narrative, written in “Mona’s” voice, expresses gratitude to Al-Majd for moving her and her mother “to a safe place” when they felt threatened in Lebanon, where they fled to in 2013.

The photo, however, shows Abeer Khayat, who was 33 when photographed by journalist Madeline Edwards in December 2024 in Tripoli, Lebanon, for Middle East Eye.

The online form reads: “For Gaza residents currently inside the Gaza Strip only!

“Do you aspire to travel and start a new life? We are here to help you!”

How did people end up on that flight?

The Palestinian families, with a pregnant woman among them, boarded the plane not knowing their final destination, having paid Al-Majd $1,400 to $2,000 each – the price for children the same as adults.

Saif, who was on the plane, said he hadn’t known when they would leave Gaza until a day before, when he was told passengers could only take a small bag, a mobile phone, and some cash.

They were taken by bus from southern Gaza’s Rafah to the Karem Abu Salem crossing (known as Kerem Shalom in Israel), where they were checked, then transferred to Israel’s Ramon Airport, without Israeli authorities stamping their travel documents.

Another person interviewed by Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity said: “The … applicant must [have a young] family. [Then] the names are sent for security screening. Once that’s completed, and if the family is approved, they’re asked to pay,” he said.

“There had been prior coordination with the Israeli army for the buses to enter Rafah,” he said. “The process was only routine.”

The group left from Ramon in a Romanian aircraft and transited through Nairobi, Kenya, before landing in Johannesburg.

Have there been similar flights before?

A man who was on board the plane told Al Jazeera there had been a similar flight to Indonesia in June.

Al-Majd’s website also claims to have facilitated a trip for “a group of doctors working in hospitals in the Gaza Strip” who it flew to Indonesia “for further studies and advanced medical training”. However, this post is dated April 28, 2024.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the authenticity of this post and a photograph of the group in it.

Gift of the Givers founder Imtiaz Sooliman, who alleged that Al-Majd was one of “Israel’s front organisations”, told AP that this was the second plane to arrive in South Africa.

Another plane arrived with more than 170 Palestinians on board on October 28, but that flight was not announced by authorities.

What did Palestine say?

The Palestinian Embassy in South Africa said in a statement that 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”.

A mobile skatepark moving between displacement camps in Gaza is providing rare mental health support to children trapped in one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises, where trauma and grief are rife.

Amid the wreckage of Gaza City, where collapsed buildings and twisted concrete dominate the landscape, a group of young Palestinians has transformed the destruction into an unlikely playground.

Since the fragile ceasefire began on October 10, skateboard coaches have been running sessions that offer traumatised children brief moments of freedom and normalcy.

“We used to have skateparks in the Gaza Strip; this was our dream here in Gaza,” said Rajab al-Reifi, one of the coaches working with the children. “But unfortunately, after we finally achieved that dream and built skateparks, the war came and destroyed everything.”

The skateboarding initiative operates against a backdrop of continuing Israeli violence despite the ceasefire.

Israeli forces have killed at least 260 Palestinians and wounded 632 others since the truce began on October 10, with attacks occurring on 25 of the past 31 days.

Making do with what’s left

The sessions face severe challenges.

With equipment shortages across Gaza, every skateboard wheel and piece of wood has become precious. Al-Reifi often repairs damaged boards between sessions, knowing replacements are nearly impossible to obtain.

One of the few flat courtyards to survive Israel’s bombardment provides a training ground for beginners, while more adventurous skaters have turned piles of rubble and collapsed walls into makeshift ramps and obstacles.

Rimas Dalloul, another dedicated coach, works to keep the children engaged despite the dire conditions.

“We don’t have enough skateboards for everyone, and there is no protective gear,” she explained. “Their clothes are all they have to help cushion them when they fall. They get injured sometimes, but they always come back. The desire to play is stronger than the pain.”

‘I used to run from bombardment to skate’

Among the young skaters is seven-year-old Marah Salem, who has been practicing for seven months.

“I come here to have fun. I don’t want to skip any sessions; I want to be consistent,” she said. “Even during the war, I used to skateboard. I used to run away from the bombardment to skate on the streets.”

Her determination reflects a broader resilience among Gaza’s children, who have endured nearly two years of Israeli military assault.

The skateboarding sessions offer children a form of recreation and a temporary escape, but also a means to process trauma and a communal activity.

The mental health needs of Gaza’s children remain staggering.

Humanitarian organisations had already identified more than one million Palestinian children in need of mental health services before the latest conflict intensified.

The scale of the conflict means no child has been shielded from its psychological impact, with mass displacement, family separations, and widespread casualties affecting the entire young population.

At least 17,000 children are now unaccompanied or separated from their parents, while child protection cases surged by 48 percent in September alone, the International Rescue Committee reports.

For the young skaters, the sessions offer something that war has tried to take away, the simple freedom of childhood play.

Their schools have been decimated, their homes destroyed, and more than 658,000 school-age children have lost access to education for nearly two years.

Yet in the ruins of their neighbourhoods, these children are finding ways to move forward.