Two charter flights carrying Palestinians from the Gaza Strip—one on Oct. 28 and another on Nov. 13-14—landed in South Africa. What might have been a standard humanitarian entry turned into a diplomatic storm after passengers on the second flight were detained for roughly 12 hours on the tarmac at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport while officials questioned their paperwork.
South African authorities eventually granted 90-day visas to some 130 of the 153 arrivals. The other 23 continued to other destinations, according to South Africa’s Border Management Authority. But the case was quickly turned into a political football, fueling a false narrative that Israel was forcing Palestinians out of Gaza, informed sources told JNS.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa suggested that the passengers were “being flushed out,” while his foreign minister, Ronald Lamola, accused Israel of having “a clear agenda to cleanse the Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank [Judea and Samaria].” The Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Ministry even accused Israel of “human trafficking.”
Those allegations—linking Israeli policy to demographic engineering—quickly reverberated online, in mainstream media and in sympathetic international commentary. But as more documentation emerges, the weaker that theory appears to be.
Standard protocol, not a secret scheme
A spokesperson for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli security body managing movement in and out of Gaza, told JNS that the passengers had flown via Ramon Airport in southern Israel to South Africa, stopping in Nairobi, Kenya, “only after a third country had formally agreed to accept them.”
COGAT, which did not name the third country, said it had processed the required paperwork, just as it has done for years for legally approved departures.
Two Palestinian passengers on the most recent flight told Reuters that they had been bused from Gaza and taken through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom border crossing before being flown out of Israel. The passengers flew via Kenya to Johannesburg on Global Airlines chartered flights.
There is no evidence—legal, military or strategic—of a population-transfer directive. Analysts noted that Israel has little incentive to invite further global scrutiny by expelling civilians en masse. So if this wasn’t an Israeli operation, who actually organized it?
South African officials have pointed the finger at a little-known nonprofit called Al-Majd (Europe). Al-Majd said in a statement that its “only interaction with the Israeli authorities [was] for the purpose of coordinating exits from Gaza.”
But another, far more established actor stands out: Gift of the Givers (GOG), led by Dr. Imtiaz Sooliman. GOG has worked in Gaza since 2009 and is deeply involved in Palestinian causes.
Sooliman is known for outspoken criticism of Israel and has built close ties with senior figures in South Africa’s Foreign Ministry. According to public interviews and reports, GOG was waiting on the ground for the first flight; helped negotiate entry for the second; and arranged logistics and support for passengers.
That raises a basic question: If these individuals were supposedly victims of a covert Israeli “expulsion,” why was a South African NGO preparing to receive them?
A source familiar with the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity, told JNS that many passengers, who included highly educated professionals, paid around $2,000 per ticket. The source suggested Sooliman has a long-term interest in attracting skilled Gazans to South Africa—strengthening political and community networks.
Inquiry may point inward
South Africa’s government, appearing to be caught by surprise, has halted additional charter flights from Gaza and launched a formal investigation. If the inquiry genuinely seeks accountability, experts say it must move beyond accusations against Israel and examine who initiated the flights, how the visas were approved and who framed the narrative against Israel before the facts were known.
For now, the informed sources told JNS, South Africa and much of the international media may be channeling outrage in the wrong direction—criticizing a process in which Israel had acted transparently and in good faith, while overlooking those who actually arranged and financed the flights to South Africa.
