Palestinians were being abused by a shell company with Israeli ties as they fled the country’s ongoing war in Gaza, and they were being paid large sums of money to covertly leave the country in what might be an official strategy to ethnically cleanse the area.
Al Jazeera conducted an exclusive digital investigation into last month’s mysterious flight, which whisked 153 people from Gaza to South Africa, finding employees for Al-Majd Europe, an unregistered front organization that falsely claimed to be working for humanitarian purposes.
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On November 13, the Palestinians made their way to OR Tambo International Airport, which serves Johannesburg and Pretoria. They were stranded on the plane for 12 hours before being allowed to leave because they did not have Israel departure stamps on their passports and were denied entry by border police.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged the passengers “out of compassion,” but he stated at the time that his government, which has long been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, would investigate after it appeared they had been “flushed out” of the Gaza Strip.
forced evacuations
In what would effectively be their forced evacuation, Israeli officials have previously publicly stated that they support what they have termed the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza.
A contentious bureau led by former ministry of defense deputy director Yaakov Blitstein was established in the security cabinet of Israel in March 2025. Israel Katz, the country’s defense minister, stated at the time that 40% of Gaza residents were “interested in emigrating.”
Al-Majd Europe established its online presence the previous month with a new website that claimed to have organized mobile health clinics in the enclave and travels for Palestinian doctors abroad, claims Al Jazeera later discovered to be false. It stated that it was focused on relief efforts in Muslim nations, specifically “for Gazans wishing to exit Gaza.”
A passenger on the flight from South Africa to the end of November, whose identity was kept secret for his own protection, claimed to have contacted the organization after discovering a link online that offered safety and medical care for injuries. It claimed to be free at first. Then they asked for $1, 400]per person]. Then the price went up to $2, 500″, he said.
According to Al Jazeera’s testimonies, the amount of money requested varied from $1,000 to $2,000 per person, with stringent signing requirements. Only families would be permitted to depart, with restrictions on keeping flight departure information secret and few hours before takeoff.
According to passengers, they were instructed to arrive at the southern Gaza crossing known as the Kerem Shalom. When they arrived, Israeli authorities apparently took their personal belongings and transported them to Ramon Airport, which is close to the city of Eilat.
There were “very clearly… marks of Israel involved in this operation to take people… to displace them,” according to Nigel Branken, a South African social worker who assisted the Palestinians on the plane.
Evacuees told Al Jazeera that they weren’t informed until shortly before board. Without having exit stamps on their travel documents, they were then led onto a flight to a brand-new airline, called FLYYO.
Al Jazeera learned that FLYYO has organized a number of similar flights, all of which depart from Israeli airports, to destinations like Kenya, Indonesia, South Africa, and Romania.
false identity
Al-Majd Europe, which claimed to be a “humanitarian foundation established in Germany in 2010 and has its head office in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem, later revealed its identity as a sham.
No German or European database contained any companies that had that name registered with Al Jazeera. The supposed address is not listed in Jerusalem’s official records, but it does appear to be a hospital and cafe on Google Maps.
Al Jazeera discovered two Palestinian faces that were related to the organization while looking into the flights. The organization lists Muayad Hisham Saidam as its manager of humanitarian projects in Gaza.
According to a search of Saidam’s name, his wife launched a public page to request donations to help her family leave Gaza in May of 2024. Saidam announced that he was leaving Gaza on a plane he had booked with Fly Lili, another Romanian airline, a year later, with a photo of himself.
Al Jazeera uncovered Saidam was likely on a flight from Israel to Budapest on May 27, 2025, with 57 Palestinian passengers from Gaza, using his shadow’s angle, the time of the flight, and the location of the plane on the Ramon Airport runway.
Saidam’s family was likely evacuated to Indonesia, and it appears that his identity is real. However, it’s not clear whether he has any connection to Al-Majd Europe.
Adnan, who merely appears to be the organization’s public face, is the second one, despite his lack of digital sex.
A page with a number of partner companies was removed from Al-Majd’s website on November 13 the day of the flight from Johannesburg. Al-Majd claimed to have been working with a number of well-known organizations, including the International Red Cross, by using open-source intelligence techniques to retrieve the page.
Talent Globus, a recruitment firm founded in Estonia in 2024, had a $ 350 investment, to be one of its notable names. According to its website, four people are listed as employees, including businessman Tom Lind, both of whom are Israeli and Estonian.
Lind’s name has been linked to a number of other businesses where he is listed as a founder or director, all of which are not registered or physically located.
Lind was named as one of the coordinators of the Palestinian flights leaving Ramon Airport, according to reports from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Lind stated on his LinkedIn page in May 2025 that he had left Talent Globus and was now focused on “humanitarian efforts to support Palestinians.” He claimed to have assisted in the “substantial number” of people’s evacuation from Gaza along with a network of people and organizations.
The other three Talent Globus employees, James Thompson, Maria Rodriguez, and David Chen, all turned out to be stock images, according to Talent Globus’ website.
And much like those workers, it appears Al-Majd itself is a phony humanitarian organization, which raises the question of what the individuals responsible for the organization are trying to conceal.
