ISTANBUL

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

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 that the intelligence services are investigating the entity behind the charter plane that landed in Johannesburg carrying dozens of Palestinians without official travel documents.

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.

The association’s website claims it was founded in Germany 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.

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 COGAT head, 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.