Israeli group organised mystery flights for Palestinians to South Africa

The six Palestinians who spoke to AP said they paid up to USD 2,000 per person through bank and cryptocurrency transfers.

Tel Aviv: The plane carrying about 150 Palestinians from Gaza came as a surprise to everyone on the ground when it landed in South Africa in November.

It wasn’t the only one. Since May, at least three flights filled with Gaza residents who’d signed up to leave the war-torn enclave have landed in Indonesia and South Africa.

An Israeli group whose founder adamantly supported US President Donald Trump’s proposal to resettle Palestinians from Gaza is behind the flights, an AP investigation has found, raising further questions about the motives behind the evacuation of hundreds of people from the strip.

At the time, South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola called the flights a “clear agenda to cleanse out the Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank.”

Ad Kan, an Israeli organisation founded by soldiers and former intelligence officers, worked via another company to distance links to Israel and organise the flights, according to a contract, passenger lists, text messages, financial statements, and interviews with more than two dozen Israelis, Palestinians and other people involved with the trips.

Several of the passengers — who fled after more than two years of a devastating war that has decimated Gaza — said they didn’t know who was behind the trip. But they largely didn’t care, they said, as long as they could leave.

“There was famine, and we had no options. My children were almost killed,” said a 37-year-old Palestinian who arrived in South Africa in November and, like the other passengers, spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing possible punishment.

Supporting Palestinian lives’

The evacuations were organised through a company called Al-Majd, which describes itself on its website as a humanitarian organisation “supporting Palestinian lives” and providing aid for Muslim communities in conflict.

However, a look at the history of Ad Kan and its founder, Gilad Ach, suggests the Israeli group may have been driven, at least in part, by a different agenda.

Ad Kan has for years worked covertly to infiltrate groups and expose what they call antisemitic or anti-Israel activities.

After Trump floated his proposal last year to transfer 2 million Palestinians out of Gaza, Ach — an Israeli combat reservist — published a report detailing how he’d implement the “voluntary exit.”

Trump later abandoned his plan, which drew widespread international condemnation, and said Palestinians could remain in Gaza.

Group founder says the flights were humanitarian

After the war began in 2023, Ach founded a group called The Israeli Reservists Generation of Victory. His group circulated ads on buses in Israel featuring a portrait of Trump beside the Hebrew words: “Victory = Voluntary migration … This bus could be full of Gazans. Listen to Trump, let them out!”

Ach declined to be interviewed and said in a text message to AP that he was proud to lead organisations voicing support for the rights of Palestinians in Gaza who want to leave for safer parts of the world, free from Hamas. He denied South Africa’s allegation that the flights were meant to cleanse Gaza and the West Bank of Palestinians. He said they were humanitarian flights and that those who left reached out for help, with some paying for part of the costs.

Critics say such emigration from Gaza is not voluntary after the war left much of the strip uninhabitable. Rights groups also warn that people need to be allowed to return, and Israel has a decades-long track record of making it difficult for Palestinian to return to Gaza.

How the flights worked

AP spoke to six Palestinians who left Gaza via the flights.

Some said they started hearing about a company transferring people out of Gaza in early 2025. Some saw ads online or on social media or were sent to Al-Majd’s website through friends.

Months before the flight landed in Johannesburg last November, an earlier flight in May took nearly 60 Palestinians from Israel via Hungary to Indonesia and a handful of other locations. A second flight, in October, took some 170 people from Israel to South Africa via Kenya, according to people who helped organise the planes, flight-tracking information and Palestinians who used the service.

The six Palestinians who spoke to AP said they paid up to USD 2,000 per person through bank and cryptocurrency transfers.

They said the website indicated they’d be taken to South Africa, Indonesia, or Malaysia, but didn’t give an option to choose.

American-Israeli businessman Moti Kahana signed a contract in August, shared with AP, to organise a flight for Ad Kan.

Kahana, who has experience evacuating people from conflict zones, said he was approached to help arrange a flight for more than 300 Palestinians to Indonesia from Ramon airport in southern Israel. The contract stated that his company would provide a “flight rescue service” for a minimum payment of USD 750,000.

But during planning, the route was changed to South Africa, he said, and his participation ended.

Kahana said Ach told him about Ad Kan’s connection to Al-Majd, describing it as run by both Arabs and Israelis in Israel, but not wanting to promote its Israeli ties.

“It’s the same people, the same company, different names,” Kahana said. “They have a group of Arab-speaking people that answer the phone, and they don’t want to show Israel involvement; they have like an Arab face to it.”

Kahana said Ach’s team gave him a spreadsheet listing people who paid for the flights. The document — seen by AP — includes the names of at least 13 people whose families said they registered and paid through Al-Majd and flew to South Africa.

Getting out of Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and COGAT, the defence body that facilitates departures to Palestinians leaving Gaza, declined to comment on the flights.

Netanyahu’s office, COGAT and Ach also wouldn’t answer AP’s questions about whether Palestinians who fled would be allowed to return.

Families who flew to South Africa told AP they weren’t aware that Israelis were behind the flights, but that in the end, it didn’t matter.

“All I cared about was getting my family out of Gaza and saving them,” said a Palestinian who used Al-Majd to send his wife and son to South Africa.