UPDATE 2 - Israeli-run association behind illegal chartered flights carrying Palestinians out of Gaza: Reports

ADDS MORE DETAILS

By Said Amori, Betul Yilmaz and Rania Abu Shamala

ISTANBUL (AA) - An Israeli-run entity is behind mysterious flights transporting Palestinians from the Gaza Strip abroad through Ramon Airport in southern Israel, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported over the weekend.

On Thursday, South Africa granted a 90-day visa exemption for 153 Palestinians who arrived from Kenya to seek asylum in the country, although they were initially denied entry due to a lack of travel documents and customary departure stamps in their passports.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the intelligence services are investigating the entity behind the charter plane that landed in Johannesburg carrying the Palestinians.

According to Haaretz, an association run by Tomer Janar Lind, who holds dual Israeli-Estonian citizenship, sells Palestinians in Gaza seats on chartered flights heading to far-off countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and South Africa for around $2,000.

Haaretz also noted Sunday that Lind worked with an Israeli military unit charged with the forced transfer of Palestinians from Gaza to facilitate several such flights.

The association’s website claims it was founded in Germany in 2010 and maintains offices in East Jerusalem. However, the newspaper’s investigation found that it is actually registered in Estonia and operates through a front consulting company.

But the website itself has no address or phone number, providing just a location in Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem, said Al Jazeera, adding it 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, according to the Qatari channel.

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

Haaretz added that the Defense Ministry’s Voluntary Emigration Bureau had directed the entity’s activities to the military body COGAT to coordinate the departure of Palestinians from Gaza.

Lind has not denied responsibility for the flights but has refused to provide more information on the matter.

According to the newspaper, several flights chartered by this entity have taken off in recent months from Ramon Airport carrying groups of Gazans, which indicates a nearly systematic pathway for the exit of increasing numbers of people, rather than individual cases.

One of the flights was a Romanian chartered plane that carried 57 Palestinians from Gaza to Budapest, Hungary before going to Indonesia and Malaysia, the daily added.

Meanwhile, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that an organization called “Al-Majd” headquartered in Jerusalem was responsible for carrying more than 150 Palestinians out of the Strip.

The daily added that the institution, founded in 2010, works to relocate Palestinians from Gaza under the pretext of “assistance” and claims to “help Muslim communities in conflict areas.”

The contact details listed on the institution's website seem to be inaccurate, and the phone numbers are not operational, the outlet said.

“Israel escorted the buses that transported the passengers from a gathering point inside Gaza to the (Israeli-controlled) Kerem Shalom crossing, from where other buses took them to Ramon Airport in the Negev,” the paper said, citing an unnamed Israeli military official.

The media report added that the secrecy surrounding the flight raised concerns among human rights organizations, which warned it could be part of an Israeli effort to engineer the displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

The Qatar-based Al Jazeera channel, citing officials from South Africa’s border agency, said “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.”

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

The officials highlighted that 23 Palestinians left to other countries, without further details.

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

He added that “it does seem like they were being flushed out” of Gaza.

“This is not at all a random event,” Oroub el-Abed, associate professor in international migration and refugee studies at Birzeit University in Ramallah, told Al Jazeera.

“This is very much part of a long colonial pattern, a very systematic dispossession of indigenous Palestinians that has been perpetuated by Zionist Israelis, and they want to empty the land from its indigenous people, using multi-faceted approaches,” she added.

According to Al Jazeera, among the functioning links on the association’s website is a page featuring four “Impact Stories.” One of them, about “Mona,” a 29-year-old from Aleppo, Syria, is dated March 22, 2023—even though the website itself was registered only 10 months ago.

The story, written in “Mona’s” voice, thanks Al-Majd for transferring her and her mother “to a safe place” after they felt threatened in Lebanon, where they had sought refuge in 2013.

However, the accompanying photograph is actually of Abeer Khayat, who was 33 when journalist Madeline Edwards photographed her in Tripoli, Lebanon in December 2024 for Middle East Eye.

The site’s online form states: “For Gaza residents currently inside the Gaza Strip only!” followed by: “Do you aspire to travel and start a new life? We are here to help you!”

Loay Abu Saif, who traveled on the flight with his wife and children, told Al Jazeera on Friday that he first learned of Al-Majd through a social media advertisement. He said he did not know their departure date until the day before and was informed that passengers could bring only a small bag, a mobile phone and some cash.

The family was taken by bus from Rafah in southern Gaza to the Kerem Shalom crossing, where they underwent checks before being transported to Israel’s Ramon Airport—without their passports being stamped by Israeli authorities.

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.”

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

The group flew out of Ramon aboard a Romanian aircraft and connected through Nairobi, Kenya before arriving in Johannesburg.

Notably, Haaretz reported that a similar operation took place on May 27, when around 57 Palestinians from Gaza were taken by bus through the Karem Abu Salem crossing to Ramon Airport.

According to the newspaper, the group then boarded a Romanian-chartered Fly Lili aircraft that flew them to Budapest, where they continued on to Indonesia and Malaysia.

The Al-Majd website also claimed that it had arranged travel for “a group of doctors working in hospitals in the Gaza Strip,” flying them to Indonesia “for further studies and advanced medical training,” though this post is dated April 28, 2024.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry warned Palestinians, especially those in the Gaza Strip, about networks that seek to displace them from their homes in line with Israeli interests.

The head of COGAT, Ghassan Alian, was quoted by the daily as saying that “the Palestinians had left Gaza after Israel received approval from a third country willing to admit them,” without naming it.

Israel had previously discussed with several countries, including South Sudan, the possibility of relocating Palestinians there.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, nearly 40,000 Palestinians have left the Gaza Strip since the start of the Israeli genocide.

More than 69,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 170,700 others injured in a deadly Israeli war on Gaza since October 2023.