South Africa stops canceling visas for Palestinian passport holders.
The South African Home Affairs Ministry said the decision was taken after investigations revealed that actors linked to the Israeli regime had deliberately abused the visa waiver to voluntarily relocate Gaza residents to South Africa.
According to a statement from the Pretoria-based Home Affairs Ministry, the visa-free travel program for Palestinian passport holders was abused on two recent charter flights, bringing “Palestinians not for the intended purpose of tourism or short-term stays but for the purpose of relocating from Gaza.” Some intermediaries have been chartering charter flights to transport several Palestinians from Gaza to the country on one-way tickets.
Recently, there have been reports in the media of mysterious flights to transport Palestinians to South Africa. In one such incident last month, about 160 Palestinians were stranded at Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, for 12 hours before being allowed to enter.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed a few days later that a mysterious organization run by an “Israeli-Estonian” citizen was responsible for that flight. The organization had also chartered several other flights to transport Palestinians from Gaza to South Africa.
Al Jazeera also reported that the Zionist regime had closely coordinated the secret transfer of Palestinian families in Gaza to South Africa.
In a report, the news network looked behind the scenes of the mysterious flights carrying Palestinians living in Gaza to South Africa and added: “Amidst doubts and suspicions about human trafficking under the guise of humanitarian activities, details have been published about the organization ‘Al Majd Europe’ that organizes these flights.
According to Israeli media, the Al Majd organization offers Palestinians two thousand US dollars and books tickets for them to destinations such as South Africa, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The sponsor of the “Al Majd Europe” organization is a person named “Tomer Gunnar Lind,” who has Israeli and Estonian citizenship.