Johannesburg, South Africa — President Cyril Ramaphosa says 153 Palestinians who landed on a chartered flight at O.R. Tambo International Airport will be allowed to stay in South Africa, even though they arrived with incomplete travel documents and were held on board for about 12 hours.
Ramaphosa told reporters in Soweto that the group, believed to have fled Gaza, “somehow mysteriously were put on a plane that passed by Nairobi and came here,” and that he was alerted only after the aircraft landed. “I said we cannot turn them back,” he recalled, citing South Africa’s humanitarian obligations toward people coming from a “war-torn country.”
Border Management Authority officials initially denied the group entry, saying the passengers lacked Israeli exit stamps, had not indicated how long they intended to stay and could not provide local addresses. As a result, families — including a woman reported to be nine months pregnant — were confined in sweltering conditions on the plane, with witnesses describing children “screaming and crying.”
Human rights groups and local activists condemned the ordeal, accusing authorities of treating war-displaced civilians like security threats. Ramaphosa later acknowledged the incident had caused “concern and anger,” but insisted that allowing them to remain was the correct response “out of compassion, out of empathy,” adding that the episode suggested they were being “flushed out” of Gaza.
The standoff ended late Thursday after the Home Affairs Ministry intervened and South African NGO Gift of the Givers offered to house the travelers and guarantee their upkeep. Of the 153 passengers, 130 were admitted on 90-day visa exemptions under existing rules for Palestinian passport holders, while 23 have since continued on to other destinations, including Canada, Australia and Malaysia.
South Africa’s intelligence services have now opened an investigation to determine who organized the flight, how the passengers exited Gaza and Israel, and why so many arrived without standard documentation. The Palestinian Embassy in Pretoria has blamed an unregistered group for collecting money and arranging the charter without coordination, while an Israeli military official has pointed to an organization called Al-Majd as the broker.
Gift of the Givers says this is the second such charter from Gaza to land in South Africa in two weeks, and that many of the passengers only discovered en route that Johannesburg was their final destination. With several now expected to apply for asylum, the case has reignited domestic debate over migration controls, national security and South Africa’s high-profile support for the Palestinian cause during the Gaza war.
