 "Palestinian Authority warns of pro-Israeli networks taking Gazans out of the Strip after South Africa debacle")
Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday warned Palestinians living in Gaza to be wary of networks that seek to remove them from their homes. The warning was issued a day after 153 Palestinians who left Gaza without knowing their final destination and without proper paperwork arrived in South Africa.
They were on a flight from Kenya and were held up by South African authorities for 12 hours on Friday as they tried to figure out how they had arrived in the country. The mysterious arrival came at a time when South Africa had been advancing a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
While the investigation into the matter continues, the South African authorities are giving 90-day visas to stranded Palestinians. In light of this, the Palestinian ministry on Saturday expressed “deep appreciation” for the support from the South African authorities and people. The Palestinian embassy in Pretoria noted that it is working to assist the travellers who have “endured over two years of Israeli genocidal war, killing, displacement, and destruction”.
However, the foreign ministry warned that the companies, unofficial entities and unregistered intermediaries inside Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory are trying to mislead Palestinians and incite them to leave their homeland. “The ministry calls upon our people, especially our people in the Gaza Strip, to exercise caution and not fall prey to human trafficking, to merchants and companies of blood, and to agents of displacement,” it said.
Questions over how Palestinians reach South Africa
Questions have been mounting around the shadowy organisation that orchestrated the mystery trip – Al-Majd Europe. According to an Al Jazeera report, the entity does not have an office in its stated headquarters of Sheikh Jarrah, occupied East Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s Border Management Authority stated that 130 Palestinians ended up entering the country, while 23 were transferred from South Africa to other destinations from the airport itself. The authorities noted that most of these passengers are expected to apply for asylum in the country.
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View AllA South African humanitarian aid organisation, Gift of the Givers, said it was committed to accommodating the visitors during their stay. While speaking to the country’s public broadcaster SABC, Charity founder Imtiaz Sooliman said that the first plane carrying 176 Palestinians had landed in Johannesburg on October 28, with some of the passengers departing for other countries.
He noted that the accounts of Palestinian arrivals indicate that Israel appears to be removing people from Gaza and putting them on a plane without stamping their passports. The lack of paperwork leaves them stranded in third countries.
How is Israel treating the matter?
The Israeli Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office have not reacted to the incident, but Israel and the United States have repeatedly pushed to move as many Palestinians out of Gaza as possible. With this ambition in mind, both nations have been holding negotiations with several countries in the region to accommodate the Palestinian population.
Meanwhile, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli military organisation in charge of the Gaza border crossings, was quoted as saying by Israeli media that it received approval from a third country to receive the Palestinians as part of an Israeli government policy allowing Gaza residents to leave. However, the third country was not named in the statement.
While speaking to Al Jazeera, Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, a book about Israel’s arms and surveillance industry, said the transit scheme could have been operating weeks or months under the international radar.
He noted that there have been rumours about companies making such flights, which apparently “requires Israeli permission as well as other countries’ permissions”. “This is the concept of people making money out of other people’s misery,” he said, also pointing to the murky operations and website of the company that ran the scheme.
“I see it as a form of ethnic cleansing,” Loewenstein told Al Jazeera. “The issue is people providing [the transit] and the Israeli state facilitating it, a state where many ministers in the Israeli government, and frankly the Israeli public, want no Palestinians left in Gaza, and I fear this is part of that mission.”
Amid the chaos, both Jordanian King Abdullah and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed “zero-tolerance” for any displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. The remarks from two leaders came as Sharif hosted King Abdullah in Islamabad on a two-day state visit.
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