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As Gaza’s misery deepens, secret flights approved by Israel offer a way out. But many fear they are laying the groundwork for a silent population transfer
A bombshell report exposing a shadowy organisation’s secret charter flights transporting Palestinians out of Gaza has raised growing fears of an expanding policy of forced transfer and ‘soft displacement’.
According to a Haaretz investigation, Al-Majd Europe, a little-known association with ties to Israel, has facilitated covert flights to undisclosed destinations, often without Palestinian passengers from Gaza knowing where they were heading.
In November, a chartered plane carrying 153 Palestinians from Gaza landed in Johannesburg after a secretive route via Nairobi. Passengers lacked exit stamps, and many did not know their destination, prompting South Africa’s Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola to denounce the operation as “a clear agenda to cleanse Palestinians out of Gaza”.
Those on the plane later said they boarded without knowing where they were going, carrying only basic belongings. Many thought it was a temporary or medical evacuation. They were instructed not to speak about the journey, leaving them exhausted, anxious, and unaware that they were in South Africa until the plane landed.
Gaza has been under an intense Israeli land, air and sea blockade since 2007, yet this year Israel has quietly loosened certain restrictions.
In May, at least 1,000 people were reportedly bused out of Gaza via Gaza’s Kerem Shalom border crossing to board flights to Europe and elsewhere from Ramon Airport near Eilat.
The real number, however, remains impossible to verify due to the secrecy surrounding these operations.
Destruction as leverage
The wholesale destruction across Gaza has amplified these fears. This includes over 90 percent of homes damaged or destroyed, and more than 80 percent of cropland rendered unusable.
Families returning home to northern Gaza are without necessities such as tents, antibiotics, and drinking water.
For many Palestinians, this devastation has created crushing pressure simply to leave, even if they only wish to do so briefly.
“The injured and sick need treatment abroad and plan to return. Students want to continue their education and come home. Others just want a month or two in Egypt to escape the rubble and painful memories. All intend to return after only a few months,” Refaat Ibrahim, a Gaza-based writer, told The New Arab.
Yet observers warn that Israel is exploiting this destruction to permanently push Palestinians out, after which Israel wouldn’t permit their return. The revelations come as Israel’s long-discussed plans for what it describes as “voluntary emigration” from Gaza resurface.
The South Africa flight was not a one-off. In May 2025, Al-Majd facilitated another flight of 57 Palestinians routed via Budapest to Malaysia and Indonesia, while the group’s website claims it flew Gaza-based doctors to Indonesia in April 2024, though this remains unverified.
Testimonies indicate passengers often paid between $1,500 and $2,500 for a seat, without being informed of the final destination.
Al-Majd itself is mired in contradictions. It presents as a Jerusalem-based, refugee-led organisation founded in 2010, yet no office exists, the website is newly registered, and the group was formally registered only in 2025, after being founded in 2024, through an Estonian company owned by Israeli-Estonian entrepreneur Tomer Janar Lind based in London, according to Haaretz reports.
In the wake of the bombshell reports, Al-Majd issued a statement rejecting accusations that it is part of an Israeli depopulation scheme. The group insists it is refugee-led and humanitarian in nature and claims its critics “seek to strip the people of Gaza of their freedom of choice”.
However, Al-Majd also confirmed it coordinates directly with Israeli authorities. “Our only interaction with the Israeli authorities is for the purpose of coordinating exits from Gaza. Every person who has left Gaza since the start of the war has had to go through Israeli security coordination.”
Intended as a denial, the admission nonetheless confirms that the flights, though privately organised, rely on Israeli military and security approval, raising concerns about whether they are functioning as informal extensions of state policy.
“The Israeli right-wing would love nothing more than to simply put Palestinians on boats and send them away,” Nour Odeh, a Palestinian political analyst, told The New Arab.
“They’ve tried for months to pressure other countries to take people, but that hasn’t worked, legally, politically, or diplomatically. What we’re seeing with these charter flights is a roundabout way of doing the same thing.”
Secrecy, fear, and ‘soft displacement’
Inside Gaza, Palestinians describe a climate of secrecy and fear surrounding these flights.
“The parties involved insisted on complete confidentiality… simply talking about it could jeopardise the opportunity. For this reason, people are afraid to discuss the subject of travel,” said Refaat Ibrahim.
That adds more ambiguity over the scale of the flights, and if more are to be offered.
Refaat says that many in Gaza interpret the flights as part of a larger displacement strategy. “People in Gaza view this as ‘soft displacement’ under different labels. The secrecy and lack of transparency make citizens believe something is wrong.”
The perception is shaped in part by the closure of the Rafah crossing, the only route where Palestinians received exit stamps from Palestinian authorities and could return freely.
With Rafah sealed, Israel is now allowing flights through Ramon Airport that it previously blocked even for medical evacuations, signalling an adjustment in Israel’s policy to enable Palestinians to leave Gaza, in line with the creation of the “Voluntary Migration Bureau” in March 2025.
“Israel never allowed this before the genocide… yet today it permits flights carrying hundreds of people,” Refaat added.
The mechanics of a shadow pipeline
Rights groups warn that the Ramon–Budapest–South Africa route shows a concerning new way of travel that completely bypasses Palestinian authorities and takes place without public oversight.
“Al Majd kept the destination secret from the passengers so that the authorities in the destination country would not know in advance the flight was on its way,” Tania Hary, Executive Director of Gisha, an Israeli NGO focused on Palestinian freedom of movement, told The New Arab.
Gisha stresses that Al-Majd’s flights could only happen through close cooperation with Israeli authorities, including Shin Bet vetting for each passenger, a direct consequence of Israel’s total control over Gaza’s borders.
While Israeli officials publicly deny any connection between Al-Majd and the “Voluntary Emigration Administration,” they acknowledge having referred the group to COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories), indicating a more substantial level of coordination than previously stated.
That has echoed warnings that the conditions in Gaza make genuine consent impossible. Israel’s siege, famine-level hunger, displacement, and repeated bombardment have left civilians with no meaningful choice.
“Genuine consent to leave the Gaza Strip under the horrific conditions Israel has created there simply does not exist,” said Tania Hary.
Under international law, voluntariness requires safety and the guarantee of return. Without these, departures are classified as forced transfer, a clear breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
“As long as there is no guarantee that people will be allowed to return to their homes in the Strip, any effort to encourage people to leave in fact constitutes forced transfer,” added Hary.
The secrecy of destinations and the lack of assurances that passengers can return amplify these concerns.
‘Voluntary migration’ as Israeli policy
The reports of the flights come months after Israel formally established the Voluntary Emigration Administration in March 2025, underlining the Israeli government’s ongoing interest in relocating through the means of ‘soft displacement.’
Israeli ministers have repeatedly promoted “voluntary migration” since late 2023. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has called for Palestinians to leave Gaza, said “Israelis who would replace them could make the desert bloom,” while National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said last year that his government was “working hard to promote the encouragement of migration from Gaza”.
Israel has already approached countries including Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Libya, while US-Israeli initiatives also flagged Sudan, Somalia, and Somaliland as potential hosts of displaced Palestinians. These proposals have collapsed due to legal issues and political opposition from recipient nations and criticism from Arab states.
“Israeli officials have made no mystery of their desire to empty Gaza of its inhabitants… alongside efforts to ensure that remaining in Gaza continues to be a living hell,” said Hary.
By making Gaza increasingly uninhabitable while also providing ways for people to leave, this signals the development of a two-pronged strategy, one that imposes harsh circumstances while offering opportunities for escape, thereby dividing the population of Gaza.
Wider depopulation scheme
These flights may represent an early prototype for a wider depopulation scheme. The combination of Israeli border control, private intermediaries, foreign governments, and opaque coordination could allow for displacement that is harder to detect than mass expulsions.
“As Netanyahu himself said explicitly, Israel’s objective is to ‘thin out’ Gaza’s population, and that can be achieved in many different ways,” Tariq Kenney-Shawa, US policy analyst at Al-Shabaka, told The New Arab, adding that this includes mass killings and efforts to prevent childbirth over the past two years.
“From Israel’s perspective, this is a much less risky approach to ethnic cleansing when compared to outright extermination or forcing the population over the Egyptian border,” he added.
Displacement fears coincide with a wider re-engineering of Gaza’s future. The US-backed postwar plan effectively partitions Gaza along an Israeli-imposed Yellow Line, which divides the strip, leaving most Palestinians crowded into a devastated western zone, echoing the decades-long policy it has pursued in the occupied West Bank.
“Just look at the West Bank, Israel has created hundreds of mini-Gazas, open-air prisons where every aspect of life requires permission. These communities shrink and die out. Gaza is being pushed in the same direction,” said Nour Odeh.
Odeh added that Israel intends to keep Gaza in a state of torment where life cannot become sustainable, pushing people to leave “bit by bit” as conditions deteriorate, and the population steadily shrinks.
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Ultimately, experts warn that without meaningful international pressure, Israel will continue shaping conditions that quietly push Palestinians out. The return by Western governments to “business as usual” signals to Israeli officials that they can pursue these efforts without consequence.
For Gaza’s residents, the threat is evident: displacement may come not through convoys or bulldozers, but through silence, desperation, and charter flights departing under the cover of darkness.
