South Africa will probe into the mysterious coming of 150+ Palestinians who were held on a charter plane at Johannesburg for 12 hours by the border police due to a lack of travel papers, the president has said.
On 13th November, a group of 153 Palestinians came to the OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg on a chartered flight of Global Airways that landed in Kenya without departure stamps, without a return ticket, or accommodation details as per the border authorities.
They claimed that no Palestinians had sought asylum and that they were refused entry in the first place. One of the pastors who had permission to see the occupants of the plane as they languished on it reported that it was very hot and that the kids were screaming and crying. A humanitarian organization stepped in to provide shelter and assistance, and the government tunneled 130 members of the group to enter on a routine 90-day visa waiver; the rest of the 23 had already left for other locations. Their travel began not evident. Gaza, which is blocked by Israelis, or the Israeli-held West Bank, cannot be easily left by Palestinians.
They are Gazaans who somehow got onto a plane that flew over Nairobi and landed here, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told the newspapers on Friday. According to him, the group had been admitted to the country on compassionate grounds, but they would inquire about the specifics of their case.
“We have to see evidently where the journey of the Palestinians began, where they originated, and why they have been brought here.”
Information concerning the manner in which the group evacuated Gaza is also hard to come by, but the Gift of the Givers Foundation, a non-profit making organization based in the country, said it was the second aircraft that was carrying the Palestinians to land in South Africa in the past two weeks.
The Palestinians did not know where they were being trucked to, and only when they landed in Kenya did they know they were heading to South Africa. Others had Canadian, Australian, and Malaysian visas; they were later allowed to go to these countries, said Imtiaz Sooliman, the chairperson and founder of Gift of the Givers.
According to the Palestinian embassy in South Africa, the trip of both groups was organised by an unregistered and deceptive organisation that took advantage of the tragic humanitarian situation of our people in Gaza, cheated families, collected money on their behalf, and organised their travel in a disorderly and irresponsible fashion.
The pastor who was cleared to board the plane during the time when it was on the tarmac said to the national broadcaster SABC: “When I got on the plane, it was unbearably hot. The children were all there, sweating, screaming, and crying.”
The episode has brought back the controversy on how South Africa is handling the war in Gaza. The nation that has the largest Jewish population in sub-Saharan Africa was largely in support of the Palestinian cause and condemned the war that Israel had with Hamas. In 2023, the government brought a case against Israel before the International Court of Justice, claiming genocide in the Palestinian territory against Israel. Civil society organisations, which are inspired by the South African anti-apartheid legacy, manage to organise solidarity campaigns, boycotts, and assistance to Palestinians.
The extended waiting time at the tarmac has made some South Africans blame the government for not responding swiftly to the claim of support. The fact that people do not know anything about the flights is viewed by others as a threat to national security.
Later on Friday, the home affairs minister Leon Schreiber reported that none of the Palestinian travellers sought asylum.
He said that after the travellers were assured that their lack of some items in their itinerary would not render them penniless in South Africa in the case of their lacking any asylum claims, they were allowed entry into South Africa on the standard 90-day visa exemption, with the usual terms and conditions.
