Last week, 153 Gazans landed in South Africa under murky circumstances. COGAT, the organization of the Israeli Ministry of Defense that controls the border crossings in the Strip, assured that it had allowed them to leave and take off from an Israeli airport because “a third country”, without specifying which one, had agreed to welcome them. But when the plane arrived on the runway in Johannesburg, the South African authorities and the Palestinian embassy showed their confusion. They spent 10 hours on board, until they received a 90-day visa, due to the confusion caused by the arrival of passengers without an Israeli stamp in their passports.
The crisis has put the international spotlight on a project that the Palestinians have already known about for six months. It was the latest operation by Al Majd Europe, an opaque organization that claims to have humanitarian aims and which has removed hundreds of people from the devastated Strip in three operations since May. He sends them on charter flights to Malaysia, Indonesia, Kenya or South Africa.
“We just wanted to get out of that hell,” one of them, who fled to South Africa, explains to this newspaper. The passengers paid between 1,000 and 3,000 euros, they did not know which country they would arrive in, they discovered it during the flight or they landed in a country different from the one they expected as a destination, according to their stories, released after the controversy.
South Africa’s foreign affairs ministries and the Palestinian National Authority (PA) have accused the entity of exploiting the desperation of Gazans to promote their displacement and ethnic cleansing through the back door. It is anything but a secret dream of the Israeli government, in particular of its most radical sectors, which aspire to depopulate the Palestinian area as much as possible and to build Jewish settlements there.
After having devastated Gaza (more than 80% of the buildings are damaged, according to the UN), Netanyahu’s government has been probing dozens of countries for months to convince them to welcome its inhabitants. The Ministry of Defense created an Office for Voluntary Migration to prepare for their “voluntary and safe passage to third countries” and, in February, made Ashdod port and Ramon airport (both in Israel) available for those who “want to voluntarily leave” the Strip, where the majority live poorly in tents, the UN declared famine around the capital and 7% of children remain malnourished after the ceasefire agreed in October, according to data released Friday by the representative of the World Health Organization in Palestine, Rik Peeperkorn.
Katz made the announcement in full enthusiasm for Donald Trump’s idea of emptying Gaza of its population to transform it into the Riviera of the Middle East. The current ceasefire agreement buried it last month, at least on paper, specifying that no one will be forced to leave or prevented from returning. Ramon, the airport available for the plan, is precisely where the controversial flights depart from.
In conversation with EL PAÍS, the Gaza families who have started the procedures to leave through Al Majd Europe defend their decision. The accumulated horrors of two years of invasion and the fact that states have rejected their requests for evacuation mean that this is seen as the only opportunity to reach safety. “No one in the world welcomes the inhabitants of Gaza”, protests a Palestinian from the Strip on condition of anonymity. She is willing to pay 2,350 euros for each family member – the sum the group is asking for at the moment – to travel “anywhere”. “They use the excuse of stopping ethnic cleansing. What the hell! Do they expect us to continue to suffer here with no means to survive?” protest.
“I tried so hard to leave,” says another person on Al Majd Europe’s waiting list. Israeli restrictions make a document signed by the World Health Organization certifying your need to leave for medical reasons unnecessary. “I want to live and see my son grow up,” he concludes.
In reality, the paid “escape from Gaza” operation already existed before the invasion. And it skyrocketed in the seven months between its start in October 2023 and Israeli troops’ seizure of the Rafah crossing into Egypt, which cut off that escape route. More than 100,000 Gazans left the Strip in that period, according to data that the official Palestinian statistics agency admits it has not been able to update for months. They paid between 5,000 and 10,000 euros to a controversial Arab intermediary.
On its website, created in February, Al Majd Europe claims to assist Muslim communities in conflict zones and to have experience – which it does not demonstrate – in Türkiye and Syria. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz On Sunday he noted that the Office “referred” to Al Majd Europe to coordinate the Palestinians’ departure with COGAT and named as the initiator Tomer Janar Lind, an Israeli who did not deny organizing the departures from Gaza. The organization claims that Israel is not among its founders, but rather among the “refugees” and volunteers.
Muayad Saidum, operational leader in Gaza according to the group’s website, tells this newspaper that cooperation with Israel is limited to security oversight “with no political dimension.” “All Palestinians, including PA President Mahmoud Abbas, must coordinate their departure from Gaza and the West Bank with Israel,” he justifies. A former police officer for the Hamas government in Gaza and Palestinian bodybuilding champion, Saidum calls his work “humanitarian.” “I can demonstrate that every user asks us to travel,” he writes, assuring that departures will continue, despite the controversy: “Some beg us to help them.”
In a statement published on its Facebook profile, it also claims that the entity does not announce the destination to users “for safety”, so that neither Hamas nor the PA can try to stop them, and that they can “return whenever they want”, even if in reality it is Israel (which controls the Palestinian borders) that will ultimately accept or not their return.
For those trying to escape Gaza, contacting Saidum is a triumph. “He writes to those whose travel Israel approves,” says one user. In advance, candidates turn to another agent. An automated response requests passport photos for security screening and states that the price covers “all expenses to the destination country.”
Once the payment is made, the user remains alert. A communication from Saidum a few hours in advance in a WhatsApp group created expressly It summons travelers to a point on the Strip that they must reach as best they can, despite the circumstances on the ground. They are ordered to reply that they are participating in an evacuation organized by France if anyone asks them where they are going.
With the curtains closed, the buses head towards Kerem Shalom, the passage between Israel and Rafah. Some passengers remember finding the Palestinian side of the crossing deserted. They are forced to abandon their luggage and transported more than 200 kilometers to Ramon airport, near the city of Eilat in the far south of Israel.
Gazans who were previously wary of paying for fares now want to do so. “We know that Israel is behind all this and will prevent our return, but we deserve the chance to escape from here,” says one woman.
The group’s first operation, in May, was free and expatriated 57 passengers, including Saidum, it said. The plane arrived in Budapest and some continued on to Indonesia or Malaysia. A second, on October 27, transferred 150 Palestinians. They stopped in Kenya and most continued on to South Africa, where they entered without problems.
The airlines involved in the routes deny contacting Al Majd Europe or engaging in questionable practices. However, atypical scenes occurred on board. Passengers on the second flight found out they were headed to Nairobi when the captain announced it over the public address system.
The third operation, the one that triggered the crisis, ended with 130 Palestinians in South Africa, dozens more deported to other countries and the discontent of the authorities. Government sources quoted by the local press explain the 10-hour wait with the need to ensure that there were no Hamas leaders on board. The border control authority said publicly that the error was motivated by the request for health and immigration checks. In the latter case the standard requirements were not met. But they ultimately decided to let them pass for reasons of “empathy and compassion”, according to the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
The Foreign Minister, Ronald Lamola, has made it clear that he will not allow similar incidents. “We don’t want any more flights of this kind into our territory, because this is a manifest plan with the aim of expelling Palestinians from Gaza,” he said during a press conference on Monday. briefing to the press ahead of the G-20 summit scheduled for this weekend in Johannesburg. “This appears to be part of a larger plan to expel Palestinians from Palestine to different regions of the world. It is a clearly orchestrated operation.”
The South African government has maintained a leading profile in criticizing Israel’s war operations in Gaza, presenting the complaint for alleged genocide against Israel which has been analyzed by the International Court of Justice in The Hague since the end of 2023. Due to its history it is also a global emblem of the fight against colonization processes.
