According to its website, the mission of Al-Majd Europe, yet another odd charity organisation operating in the mash and rubble of Gaza, is “dedicated to providing essential humanitarian aid, educational opportunities, and sustainable development projects to Palestinian communities.” Leaving little by way of information, the charity was clearly one of the anointed, permitted by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to operate in the Gaza Strip. A short note from March 2024, for instance, announces the agency’s expansion of “emergency operations in Gaza and surrounding areas to reach more communities in urgent need, delivering critical supplies and lifesaving medical care.”
The organisation is steered by Tomer Janar Lind, a dual Israeli Estonian national tasked with the removal of Palestinians from Gaza. Lind, it would seem, is also the director of Here Z Well Ltd, a UK-based advertising agency that has a habit of not updating its paperwork. It is currently the subject by Companies House, the formal register of companies based in the United Kingdom, of an active proposal to be struck off.
Two Gazans interviewed by Reuters claim to have been among 130 Palestinians who arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa after leaving Gaza by bus, an Israeli airport by plane, and temporarily stopping in Nairobi. Al Jazeera put the number of those at 153. A report in the New York Times even claims that those boarding the flight had no idea where they were ultimately heading and also notes another similarly organised flight that landed in Johannesburg last month.
On arriving in Johannesburg airport on the chartered Global Airways flight from Kenya, South African border authorities were puzzled to see an absence among the passengers of departure stamps, return tickets or any details of accommodation. Visas for up to 90 days were subsequently organised for most of the party, with accommodation shared between a number of hostels and members of the local Muslim community. Some 23 others left on flights for other destinations.
South African officials sense something distinctly off about these arrangements. “These are people from Gaza who somehow mysteriously were put on a plane that passed by Nairobi and came here,” clucked South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. “It does look like it represents a broader agenda to remove Palestinians from Palestine,” suggested South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola.
In permitting them to stay, Ramaphosa was also of the view that they represented “a different and special case of a people that we have supported as a country.” And Pretoria has done just that, keeping Israel busy with a series of applications in the International Court of Justice, most notably on the gravest claim that genocide has taken place in the Strip against the local populace.
This is not to say that the processing of the Palestinian arrivals has been a smooth affair. On arrival, a 10-hour period had to expire before disembarking was permitted. “The border authorities were unwilling to consider the factors that these people came from Gaza, that there’s a humanitarian crisis,” claimed activist Na’eem Jeenah. “They were looking at it very narrowly.” Border officials the world over are of a certain kidney.
Al-Majd Europe has also done its ignoble bit for the global people trafficking market. While it claims to specialise in conducting “evacuations from conflict zones”, there is not a shred of altruism in it. Ahmed Shehada, for instance, along with his wife and two young children, were asked to fork out US$1,600 per head, paid up front into a crypto account, to be evacuated. (Those on this month’s flight paid $2,000.)
When asked about Lamola’s remarks, an Israeli spokesperson was quick with the official line: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “made it clear that if Palestinians want to leave, they should be allowed to leave the Gaza Strip. And if they want to come back to the Gaza Strip, they should be allowed to come back.” This official line, it should be said, has only been taken rather grudgingly, largely at the encouragement of the Trump administration.
The reasons for fleeing Gaza are innumerable and incontestable in any humanitarian sense. The enclave has been reduced to an inhospitable moonscape lacking infrastructure and functioning facilities. The residents remain vulnerable to sporadic attacks by the IDF and Hamas’s continued efforts to maintain control. “I’m a lymphoma cancer patient,” Ramzi Abu Youssef, one of the Johannesburg arrivals, told Reuters. “How long would I have to wait to be evacuated … I had to leave for treatment and for a better life for my family.” His family was already short of two daughters, both slain in an Israeli attack in June 2024 on Nuseirat camp.
The conditions created by the war and its relentless prosecution, one that has left 69,000 Palestinians dead, has engendered the reasons for an exodus. And through that, ethnic cleansing is making its mark, directly or otherwise.