South Africa has launched an investigation into how a chartered plane carrying more than 150 Palestinians from war-torn Gaza landed in Johannesburg without proper travel documents or prior coordination, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Friday.
The Associated Press reported that the aircraft arrived at O.R. Tambo International Airport on Thursday morning, but the passengers were held on board for nearly 12 hours.
South Africa’s border authorities said the Palestinians could not explain where they intended to stay, and did not have the exit stamps or slips that are usually issued by Israeli officials to people leaving Gaza.
Rights groups sharply criticised the government for keeping the 153 passengers, including families, children, and a woman said to be nine months pregnant, in difficult conditions on a sweltering plane without food or water.
Mr Ramaphosa said the circumstances surrounding the group’s travel, which included a stopover in Nairobi, were unclear.
“These are people from Gaza who somehow mysteriously were put on a plane that passed by Nairobi and came here,” he said.
Most of the passengers were later allowed into the country after intervention from the Ministry of Home Affairs and assistance from the local charity, Gift of the Givers.
The government said 23 of the passengers later travelled onward to other countries, while 130 remained in South Africa.
“Even though they do not have the necessary documents and papers, these are people from a strife-torn, war-torn country, and out of compassion, out of empathy, we must receive them,” Mr Ramaphosa said.
South Africa’s strong support for the Palestinian cause has been a defining feature of its foreign policy throughout the Gaza war. The government has accused Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice, a charge Israel rejects while calling South Africa the “legal arm” of Hamas.
Large pro-Palestinian marches have been held around South Africa since the conflict began.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 69,000 Palestinians have been killed in the two-year conflict, more than half of them women and children. A fragile ceasefire is currently in place.
The Palestinian embassy in South Africa said the flight was arranged by “an unregistered and misleading organisation” that exploited desperate families, collected money from them and facilitated their travel “irregularly and irresponsibly” before abandoning responsibility once problems arose.
An Israeli military official, speaking anonymously to AP, said an organisation known as Al-Majd arranged the trip, coordinating buses that moved the group from Gaza to the Kerem Shalom crossing and then to Ramon Airport in Israel before they were flown out.
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South African officials said they did not know who chartered the flight. Shadowy details surrounding the operation have raised concerns among rights groups that the movement is part of efforts to push Palestinians out of Gaza, the AP reported.
COGAT, the Israeli authority that manages Gaza crossings, said the passengers left Gaza after it received approval from a third country to receive them, without naming the country.
Gift of the Givers founder Imtiaz Sooliman said this was the second unexplained flight to land in South Africa with Palestinians from Gaza, following another plane that arrived on 28 October carrying more than 170 people.
Mr Ramaphosa said the authorities would conduct a “proper evaluation” of the incident and inform the public once more details emerge.
