S. Africa warns of Israeli 'agenda to cleanse Palestinians' after 'suspicious' flights
Iran Press TV
Monday, 17 November 2025 7:02 PM
South Africa has warned of Israel's "clear agenda to cleanse Palestinians" out of the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank after the surprise arrival of Palestinians on a chartered flight last week.
Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola made the remarks on Monday after 153 Palestinians landed in Johannesburg on a chartered flight on Thursday without departure stamps from Israel in their passports.
"We are suspicious, as the South African government, about the circumstances surrounding the arrival of the plane," Lamola told reporters.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa allowed the group's entry on a standard 90-day visa exemption after border police kept them on the plane for 12 hours.
According to the local Gift of the Givers charity that is assisting the arrivals, it emerged later that the first plane carrying 176 Palestinians had arrived on October 28.
"We do not want any further flights to come our way because this is a clear agenda to cleanse out Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank and those areas, which South Africa is against," Lamola said.
"It does look like it represents a broader agenda to remove Palestinians from Palestine into many different parts of the world, and is a clearly orchestrated operation," he said.
Reports said a shadowy organization called Al-Majd was involved in the Palestinians' departure from Gaza.
According to the Gift of the Givers, the Palestinians said they had paid about $2,000 per person to Al-Majd for the trip and did not know they were heading to South Africa.
"What we've been told is that they were promised some type of travel out of Gaza to some form of safety in a country that would welcome them," representative Sarah Oosthuizen told AFP.
Some of the passengers seemed to have been misled about their ultimate destination, with a few thinking they were headed to Indonesia, Malaysia, or India.
Travelers in the first group "definitely did not know that they were coming to South Africa," Oosthuizen said.
The second group transited through Kenya before boarding the chartered plane to Johannesburg.
The accommodation they had been promised on arrival turned out to have been booked for only up to a week, and "when they were settled in these accommodations, their contact with Al-Majd went silent," Oosthuizen said.
The Palestinian embassy in South Africa said on Thursday that the travel of both groups "was arranged by an unregistered and misleading organization that exploited the tragic humanitarian conditions of our people in Gaza."
The group had "deceived families, collected money from them, and facilitated their travel in an irregular and irresponsible manner," it added.
South Africa, one of the strongest supporters of the Palestinian cause that filed a genocide case against Israel at the United Nations' top court in December 2023, is investigating the matter, according to Lamola.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has said the Palestinians who landed in his country appear to have been "flushed out" of Gaza.
According to an investigation by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Al-Majd is a mysterious Estonia-registered "consulting" firm owned by an Israeli individual.
The company has so far transported 350 Palestinians from Gaza on charter flights from Ramon Airport to Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Africa.
Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper said that the company was in contact with the Israeli "Voluntary Migration Office" in Israel's ministry of military affairs.
During Israel's two-year genocidal war on Gaza, Arab and international officials repeatedly opposed any relocation of Palestinians.
Israel has so far killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians since launching the genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, before a ceasefire deal, brokered by the United States, was reached in the strip last month.
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