Photo credit: DW
South Africa’s intelligence services are investigating who was behind a chartered plane that landed in Johannesburg with more than 150 Palestinians from war-ravaged Gaza who did not have proper travel documents and were held onboard on the tarmac for around 12 hours, as a result, the country’s president said on Friday.
The plane landed on Thursday morning at OR Tambo International Airport. However, the passengers were not allowed to disembark until late at night. Immigration interviews revealed that the Palestinians could not say where or how long they were staying in South Africa, South Africa’s border agency said. It was also alleged that the Palestinians did not have exit stamps or slips that would normally be issued by Israeli authorities to people leaving Gaza.
However, the actions of South African authorities in initially refusing to allow the passengers to alight from the plane provoked fierce criticism from non-governmental organizations. They said the 153 Palestinians were kept in dire conditions on the plane, which was extremely hot nd had no food or water.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said there was an investigation to uncover how the Palestinians came to South Africa.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Embassy in the country said the flight was arranged by “an unregistered and misleading organization that exploited the tragic humanitarian conditions of our people in Gaza, deceived families, collected money from them, and facilitated their travel in an irregular and irresponsible manner. This entity later attempted to disown any responsibility once complications arose.”
The secretive nature of the flight raised fears among rights groups that it marked an attempt by the Israeli government to push Palestinians from Gaza.
Israel’s foreign ministry referred questions to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). COGAT is the Israeli authority responsible for implementing civilian policies in the Palestinian territories.It said the Palestinians on the charter plane left the Gaza Strip after it received approval from a third country to receive them as part of an Israeli government policy allowing Gaza residents to leave. It didn’t name the third country.
