On Thursday morning, a chartered plane carrying 153 Palestinians from war-torn Gaza – many without the required travel documents – landed at an airport near Johannesburg, leaving South African officials “blindsided”.
After nearly 12 hours of scrambling, the group was allowed to disembark into the care of a local charity organisation.
More details have emerged about the scheme run by “Al-Majd Europe”, through which activists argue Israel is advancing its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.
The Palestinian passengers were charged a hefty sum of money by the organisation, which says on its website that it coordinates “evacuations from conflict zones”.
Here is everything we know about the group’s transit so far and who’s behind Al-Majd Europe.
What happened in South Africa?
The plane full of people sat on a runway for nearly 12 hours while South African authorities tried to figure out why they did not have exit stamps or slips from when they left Gaza, according to officials from South Africa’s border agency.
They were also not sure when asked by immigration where they would stay or how long they planned to be in South Africa.
The government allowed them to leave the plane after charity organisation Gift of the Givers offered to accommodate them.
Officials said 23 Palestinians flew to other countries, without adding any more details.
“These are people from Gaza who somehow mysteriously were put on a plane that passed by Nairobi and came here,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Friday.
He added that “it does seem like they were being flushed out” of Gaza. South Africa’s intelligence services are investigating the incident.
What is the company that flew them to South Africa?
Behind the flight is Al-Majd Europe, which is accused of acting in coordination with Israeli authorities.
Loay Abu Saif, who fled Gaza with his wife and children to Johannesburg, told Al Jazeera on Friday that he had heard about it through a social media advertisement.
The Al-Majd Europe website says it was founded in 2010 in Germany, and the homepage has a pop-up warning about individuals pretending to be its agents, sharing phone numbers of “legitimate representatives”.
But the site itself has no address or phone number, providing just a location in Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem. However, Al Jazeera was not able to find an office there.
The website domain, almajdeurope.org, was only registered in February this year, while several links on the site lead nowhere. The email listed, info@almajdeurope.org, bounces back an automated message saying it does not exist.
Namecheap, which registered the domain, has been cited in several cybersecurity reports on online fraud because of its low-cost, easy sign-up process.
Al Jazeera learned that many people were told to pay via bank transfers to personal, not organisational, accounts.
Does Al-Majd Europe do what it says it does?
Among the links that work is a page with four “Impact Stories”.
One post a