On the afternoon of November 14th the BBC News website published a report by Khanyisile Ngcobo in Johannesburg and Wycliffe Muia in Nairobi headlined “South Africa to investigate ‘mystery’ of planeload of Palestinians”.
The report begins by telling readers that: [emphasis added]
“South African President Cyril Ramaphosa says there will be an investigation into the “mysterious” arrival of a chartered plane carrying 153 Palestinians from Gaza into the country.
The group arrived at OR Tambo International Airport but were initially refused entry and were stuck in the plane for more than 10 hours as they “did not have the customary departure stamps in their passports“, local authorities said.”
Readers are later told that:
“Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber said that while Palestinian passport-holders qualified for 90-day visa-exempt access to South Africa, the lack of departure stamps, return tickets or accommodation addresses in some of the travellers’ documentation resulted in the initial refusal to let them into the country.”
Despite their uncritical amplification of those statements, the writers of this report did not bother to inform BBC audiences that – as noted by the Israeli embassy in South Africa and others – Israel does not stamp passports on exit from the country.
The BBC’s report also tells readers that:
“The circumstances of their departure from Gaza and travel to South Africa remain unclear.”
It goes on to quote a South African media outlet:
“Ramaphosa said the group “somehow mysteriously were put on a plane that passed by Nairobi” and flew to South Africa, reports the News24 site.”
As the BBC knows, since June 2024 Israel has been facilitating the evacuation of Palestinians in need of medical care abroad and their caregivers via the Ramon Airport near Eilat. Indeed, the BBC’s report continues:
“Israeli military body Cogat, which controls Gaza’s crossings, said in a statement: “The residents left the Gaza Strip after Cogat received approval from a third country to receive them.” It did not specify the country.”
France 24 later reported that the “third country” was South Africa. The BBC’s report continues:
“According to the Palestinian embassy in South Africa, the group left Israel’s Ramon Airport and flew to the country via the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, “without any prior note or coordination”.
A statement from the embassy said “an unregistered and misleading organization [had] 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”.”
The BBC’s report has nothing more to tell readers about that “misleading organization” – which is called Al Majd Europe – or about the South African company to which the chartered plane belongs.
Quoting an article that appeared in Haaretz, the Times of Israel reports:
“According to Haaretz, the group left Gaza early Wednesday morning, via the Strip’s southern Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, following Israeli vetting.
Members of the group were then taken by bus to Israel’s Ramon Airport, near Eilat, where they boarded a chartered plane to Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, and from there boarded the chartered flight to Johannesburg.
An earlier group departing Gaza made an identical trip some two weeks ago and disembarked in Johannesburg without incident, Haaretz said. Both journeys were organized by an hitherto unknown organization called Al-Majd, which has received many requests from Gazans who want to leave the Strip, the report said. […]
Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which oversees the flow of people and goods to and from Gaza, also told Haaretz that the Palestinians had received visas from South Africa ahead of time. COGAT was also cited by the newspaper as saying that, as a rule, Israel always makes sure that there is a country that will accept Gazans departing the Strip.”
The BBC’s report goes on to quote a South African charity which was not involved in the evacuation of that group of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip but which has also been promoting the ‘no exit stamps’ narrative.
“South African charity Gift of the Givers has said it will provide the group with accommodation in the country.
Civil societies in South Africa have called for investigations into the conditions the Palestinians had fled in Gaza and the exact route of the aircraft.”
As explained by a South African commentator, the route taken by the chartered aircraft is already known.
“From Ramon Airport, the group was routed through Nairobi as a routine logistical connection. Global Aviation Flight 901 left Johannesburg on 12 November, landed in Nairobi, and returned early on the 13th carrying the Gazan travellers. Kenya did not stamp their passports because they were in transit. Israel did not stamp passports because Israel discontinued passport stamping years ago to protect travellers from discrimination in countries that penalise entry from Israel. Instead, Israel issues electronic entry cards.
These are standard international practices. Flight records confirm the exact timings.”
The BBC’s report continues:
“Gift of the Givers has since called for Ramaphosa to investigate the home affairs ministry and border authority for the “humiliation they’ve caused” the Palestinians.
The organisation’s founder Dr Imtiaz Sooliman said this treatment included being forced to wait for hours on the tarmac at the airport, being denied food provided by the group and “using every excuse in the book to prevent these passengers from disembarking”.”
Remarkably, the BBC had nothing to tell its audiences either about the organisation it chose to quote or its founder – including his participation in a Cape Town rally marking the anniversary of the October 7th attacks.
“On 5 October 2024, Sooliman shared a platform under a banner proclaiming, “We are all Hamas” with known Islamist extremists. He said, “Every time we protested, the Zionists were too clever. They were arrogant, acting with impunity, put fear into you. They put fear into corporate corporations, into universities, into communities, into governments, into political parties, into associations. They run the world with fear. They control the world with money. And every time you say something, they terrify you and they say it’s antisemitic. But I’ve got a message for them. Find a new narrative, this one is dull, boring, and stupid.””
More recently, on Holocaust Memorial Day 2025, ‘Gift of the Givers’ co-hosted the screening of a problematic Al Jazeera ‘documentary’. In February 2025 the same charity promoted a video falsely claiming that Shiri Bibas was an Israeli soldier and that she and her two small children had been killed in an Israeli airstrike.
In recent days, Imtiaz Sooliman (with the help of Al Jazeera) has been promoting the notion that the flight that arrived in Johannesburg was part of a scheme of “forced migration” and “ethnic cleansing” of Gazans by Israel. A similar narrative is being promoted by the Palestinian Authority, the representative of which in South Africa was quoted in this BBC report.
Notably, it was the ‘mystery’ narrative promoted by a highly problematic yet inadequately presented charity, the PA and others that the BBC chose to highlight in this report on the story.
