Analysis
The controversial deportations from Gaza disguised as evacuations
Many analysts fear these practices may be part of a broader strategy to depopulate the Strip, a dynamic that has been talked about for decades.
While in Italy we are struggling to save a handful of people, to bring Gazans out of a hell that leaves no alternatives – because no one believes there is a future there anymore, and even if reconstruction began tomorrow, it would take years – increasingly large gray areas are emerging alongside legitimate humanitarian channels. Among these, the name that seems to come up most often is Al-Majd Europe, a foundation registered in Germany that in recent months has become the protagonist of an evacuation operation both vast and controversial. Michele Giorgio also wrote about it in Sunday’s edition of il manifesto.
The organization's official presentation is impeccable: a polished website, compassionate language, a narrative of solidarity. It describes itself as a German NGO founded in 2010, active in protecting civilians in war zones. However, when African and Arab journalists began to verify its actual existence, the image started to crack. The address listed as its European headquarters does not appear to house any operational office. I tried the institutional email myself – it doesn’t work; I even attempted to make a donation, and the link was broken. Furthermore, the photographs of its alleged leadership published on the website have been identified as AI-generated images. There is no trace of verifiable past projects, no public documentation of its activities carried out over the years.
In Arab media, questions about this organization are growing. Outlets like Al-Quds al-Arabi, Felesteen and Erem News describe the foundation as an opaque entity, whose operations are difficult to trace and which demands extremely sensitive personal data from Gazan civilians: complete family certificates, contact details for relatives abroad, financial documents, and – according to some testimonies gathered in Rafah – even information on their contacts with European NGOs and the Palestinian Authority.
A man from Khan Yunis said: “They asked us everything, including if we had relatives in Turkey or Malaysia. It felt more like an interrogation than an offer of help.” Analysts cited by the aforementioned newspapers see this data collection and lack of transparency as evidence of the organization’s possible involvement in broader political operations, consistent with a history of pseudo-humanitarian organizations being used to facilitate population transfers.
A young woman with a scholarship to study in Italy, fearing she would not manage to reach Europe after many delays, considered leaving through them. But after the initial contact, she confessed to me that she was scared: their way of working was different from that of the NGOs and universities supporting her in Italy. Something in the tone and the requests alarmed her.
Initially, the evacuations were presented as free of charge. Then the situation changed. Testimonies gathered by Al Jazeera, the Associated Press and South African media cite figures between $1,500 and $5,000 per person. A young mother from Deir al-Balah, evacuated with her two children, recounted: “They told us that without paying $3,500 we would never get out. I sold my mother's gold and asked my brother in Dubai for a loan.” Another passenger, who arrived in South Africa, said he was urged to pay “in cash, immediately, while air raids were still happening in the skies over Gaza and moving was extremely risky.” This is hardly consistent with the practices of a charitable organization, where safety comes first.
Reconstructing the routes they provide reveals even darker elements. All testimonies paint the picture of a path that starts in Gaza, goes through the Kerem Shalom crossing, continues under Israeli control to Ramon Airport, south of Eilat, and then goes on to Africa. There is no passage through Jordan, where evacuations are strictly monitored. The flights take off from an airport controlled by the Israeli army, without clear documentation, then land in Nairobi, Kenya, and finally continue to South Africa. Many passengers said they had not been informed of their destination – they found out only once they got off the plane.
Among the revelations emerging in recent weeks, some testimonies also point to routes toward Southeast Asia. A man interviewed by Al Jazeera, later cited by Iranian media, claimed that “a first group reached Indonesia in June,” again through Al-Majd Europe, passing through Ramon with a stopover in a European country. A Palestinian source reported a route involving a first flight to Budapest on a Romanian charter, and from there to final destinations such as Malaysia and Indonesia. A South African activist, after viewing some boarding passes, claimed that India, Malaysia and Indonesia were also among the listed destinations. However, none of this has been officially confirmed by Jakarta, which has an independent humanitarian reception program.
The case blew up in the media when a group arrived in South Africa: a charter plane from Kenya landed at O.R. Tambo Airport in Johannesburg with 153 Palestinian citizens on board. South African authorities immediately noted the lack of valid documents, the absence of exit stamps, incomplete certifications and anomalous procedures. The passengers were held on the tarmac for hours, and the government issued an official statement saying an investigation would be conducted. President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke publicly of a “mysterious,” “uncoordinated” arrival facilitated by external actors, stating that these people had been “pushed out” of Gaza under unclear circumstances. Some passengers were accepted into the country on humanitarian grounds, while others departed for Canada, Australia, and Malaysia.
The central question emerging in Arab, African, and international media is both simple and disturbing: who really benefits from this operation? Why build a parallel, costly evacuation system, without international monitoring, with flights passing through military airports and arriving in countries unaware of the existence of the operation? Why move civilians away from the Strip without official coordination with the UN, UNRWA, or other recognized actors?
Many analysts fear these practices may be part of a broader strategy to depopulate the Strip, a dynamic that has been talked about for decades. There is no definitive proof, but the existing clues, testimonies, and irregularities as a whole are fueling deep suspicion.
The legal issue remains crucial. Humanitarian corridors are necessary and must be guaranteed in every conflict, but they cannot become tools for demographic engineering or shortcuts to resolve through exodus issues that certain parties are unwilling to address through diplomacy. One cannot focus exclusively on saving a few hundred people while the Palestinian national question is relegated to the background. Without a clear political goal – statehood, rights, international protection – any evacuation risks turning into a collective surrender.
Saving lives is a sacred duty, but if this process takes place without guarantees and without transparency, there is a risk of leaving the most vulnerable even more isolated. Solidarity cannot be naive: it must be lucid, informed, vigilant. It must avoid being exploited, and must continue to see Palestine not as a problem in need of evacuation, but as a people to be recognized.
New elements are also emerging thanks to the account of a small group of families who left Gaza in previous months and had been lost track of. A woman from Rafah, now a refugee in Surabaya, told local mediators that her journey had been organized “by a German group” and that the transfer had started from Kerem Shalom. According to her testimony, collected by Indonesian activists, the group had boarded a European flight that was supposed to take them to Malaysia, but some passengers continued on to Indonesia thanks to tourist visas obtained before the war. The woman said she spent two days without knowing which country they were headed to, that she had not received clear documentation and that she only learned of her final destination upon arrival.
A young man from Jabalia, now in Medan, also spoke of a network of intermediaries linked to Al-Majd Europe. He reported being contacted via an unregistered Palestinian number and asked to come to a collection point near Khan Yunis. “They told us we were going to Egypt. Then they took us to the Negev, then to Ramon. It was only in Budapest that we realized some of us were going to be sent to Indonesia,” he said. He added that when he boarded the first flight, he was assured that “everything was coordinated with international organizations,” but once he arrived in Asia, he discovered that no one was waiting for him and that local authorities had received no notification.
Indonesian authorities have not issued any official statements on arrivals coordinated by Al-Majd Europe, but diplomatic circles in Jakarta admit the likelihood that small groups entered the country via irregular routes at a time when Indonesia had repeatedly expressed support for the people of Gaza. An official involved in the Indonesian government's humanitarian program explained that during the same months, Jakarta was organizing corridors dedicated to the wounded and orphans, but that “some arrivals were not part of the official records.” He confirmed that in at least two cases, Palestinian families showed up unexpectedly at consular offices without any verifiable travel documents.
According to an Arab diplomatic source based in Kuala Lumpur, some of the passengers originally bound for Malaysia were transferred to Indonesia through private channels. This would explain the confusion about final destinations and the difficulty for the media to reconstruct a unified picture of the transfers.
All this reinforces the suspicion that Al-Majd Europe has built a parallel network of evacuations that not only bypasses official humanitarian corridors but also disperses Palestinians geographically, making coordinated monitoring impossible and opening the door to potential abuse. The role of the European intermediaries involved in the stopovers, the nature of the contracts signed with the charter companies and the reason why some destinations are never communicated to passengers still remain to be clarified.
As new elements emerge, one thing is obvious: these evacuations are not simple humanitarian operations, nor do they follow the logic of protected corridors. They are the result of a system that has failed to demand, as per humanitarian law, the opening of lawful and fully supervised humanitarian corridors for this conflict, under international control. Every departure, even that of citizens reaching Italy from Gaza, is presented by the Italian government as an exception, a concession, an act of kindness rather than the exercise of a sacrosanct right: to survive a massacre. In this way, we have allowed untracked movements, devoid of institutional coordination, in which civilians become passengers in a mechanism that evades public controls. This is a system that, behind the promise of safety, risks generating a new form of invisible displacement, an undeclared diaspora moving along routes not protected by any international guarantee.
In recent days, questions have also multiplied about the possible financing of Al-Majd Europe's operations. A preliminary reconstruction by Arab and African media suggests that the organization’s funding sources are difficult to trace: private donations from Gulf countries, transfers through unregulated payment platforms, and – according to a Palestinian source with direct knowledge of the NGO sector – possible contributions from European intermediaries operating semi-clandestinely in the field of humanitarian logistics. A former relief coordinator in Gaza described the network as “a constellation of micro-funding: small fundraisers, parallel channels, front foundations that move relatively modest sums, but enough to get a charter flight off the ground.” A second source, based in Istanbul, added that some of the funders are “convinced they are supporting rescue operations,” unaware of the total lack of oversight.
At the same time, the picture of the activities of its recruiters and intermediaries is taking shape. Numerous Gazans have reported being contacted via unknown numbers, often registered abroad or associated with temporary SIM cards. In more than one case, the calls came from European prefixes, including Germany and the Netherlands, but also from Palestinian numbers not traceable to official operators. A man from Rafah explained that the intermediary “spoke non-local Arabic” and claimed to work for a European NGO authorized to operate in the Strip. According to other testimonies, the intermediaries changed phone numbers after each stage of the journey, making any form of verification impossible. Some passengers reported being added to WhatsApp groups that disappeared within a few hours of boarding the first bus to Kerem Shalom. A young woman from Gaza City said she received instructions “only via voice messages,” telling her to come to a collection point “within two hours” without further explanation.
Similar doubts have arisen regarding the management of the European flights used as stopovers. Testimonies speak of a first charter flight, often operated by Eastern European companies, with destinations such as Budapest or Bucharest. From there, passengers were redistributed to Africa or Asia. Some travel documents viewed by South African activists show boarding passes issued by Fly Lili and other small charter companies, with routes that do not appear in commercial flight records. One passenger bound for Indonesia said he was left for seven hours at Budapest airport “in an isolated room” without anyone explaining where his next flight would take him. Another, who ended up in South Africa, said that was when he discovered that his ticket showed a completely different destination from the one promised. A European diplomatic source admitted that “there were movements not recorded in standard commercial traffic,” without specifying the nature or origin of the passengers.
New details are also emerging about boarding procedures at Ramon Airport and the role of Israeli airport operators. Numerous testimonies describe a rigidly controlled system, but one set up specifically to avoid leaving any documentary traces. According to the evacuated passengers, they did not arrive at the airport through the terminals designated for international flights, but through secondary entrances usually used for staff or military flights. More than one account mentions buses escorted by army vehicles, with passengers checked in not by passport, but by name lists handed directly to airport staff.
A maintenance technician who has worked at the Eilat hub for years reported, anonymously, that during the weeks when these evacuations took place, remote parking spaces were being used, far from the gates visible to commercial passengers. According to his testimony, the charters landed and departed at times that were not allowed for ordinary civilian traffic, a sign that the operations had been deliberately scheduled in the hours reserved for the airport's technical operations, when it is not necessary to record any transit in public systems. He also reported that some flights did not show up on the internal flight displays, a common practice in military or confidential operations.
A young mother evacuated to South Africa said that no documents were requested at the time of boarding, and that names were checked by comparing printed and handwritten lists. “They didn't allow us to talk to anyone. They just told us to stay in line, follow instructions and not take any photos or videos.”
A source with knowledge of Israeli airport practices confirmed that Ramon is often used for operations requiring a high degree of control and low visibility, thanks to its remote location in the desert and the low number of commercial flights. The source added that staff may be authorized to operate without leaving digital records, which is typical for operations by the security apparatus. This would explain why some charters associated with Al-Majd Europe do not appear in international flight databases or are registered with partial identification numbers.
A further line of inquiry concerns Israel's geopolitical interests tied to the use of Ramon Airport as a hub for unregistered flows of civilians leaving Gaza. According to several analysts in the region, the use of Ramon is not only a logistical choice but also a political tool: it allows Israel to control every stage of the transfer, to avoid the international supervision that would occur in a corridor mediated by bodies such as the UN or UNRWA, and to move Gazans away from sensitive points such as the crossings into Egypt or Jordan, where the diplomatic weight of Arab countries tends to impose stricter conditions.
A Middle Eastern source close to diplomatic circles in Amman argues that the use of Ramon is part of a broader strategy: to prevent evacuations from taking place through Jordan, where every passage would be immediately recorded and subject to multilateral controls. “If they passed through Amman, the international community would see numbers, lists, destinations. They would have transparency. Ramon is designed to ensure obscurity,” the source explained. According to the same account, Jordan has repeatedly expressed concern about uncoordinated transfers of Palestinians, considering them potentially part of a demographic pressure campaign that risks affecting the entire region.
Unfortunately, on the other hand, I know from direct experience how many obstacles Jordan has placed – and continues to place – on evacuations from Gaza. Italian diplomats report blocks on the transit of women with children, students and sick people. The official reason is to avoid a mass exodus from the Strip, so as not to contribute to the emptying out of the territory. But the actual result is the opposite: instead of ensuring safe and monitored exit routes, people are being pushed towards alternative channels that are completely beyond the control and protection of the international community.
A European official involved in an observation mission in the Occupied Territories added that for years Israel has been discussing the possibility of “lightening” the population density in Gaza by encouraging migration to third countries through unofficial programs. “There is no document that openly admits this, but think tanks close to the institutions have been talking about it for over a decade,” he said. According to this source, the use of Ramon Airport in an untraceable operation fits with that kind of vision: a process that does not appear to amount to forced deportation, but which pushes desperate people to leave without leaving any trace of the volume of transfers.
An Arab diplomat based in Cairo, informed by colleagues in the Gulf, explained that some Middle Eastern countries had been informally contacted to take in “small numbers” of Gazans fleeing, but most had refused, precisely to avoid legitimizing a possible plan to empty the Strip. “They understood that if they opened their doors, the flow would become a river. And that river would never stop,” the diplomat said.
Even within Israel, the evacuations through Ramon have provoked mixed reactions among security agencies, the government and civil society. Some independent newspapers have raised questions about the nature of the operations. A former official from the Ministry of Public Security, interviewed anonymously, said that “Ramon was used as an operational laboratory, a gray area where forms of population management outside official protocols could be experimented with.” According to the source, the critical element was not the evacuation itself, but the fact that it was conducted “in partnership with foreign non-governmental actors whose internal structure is not known.”
Human rights organizations have expressed concern about the total lack of monitoring of passengers, stressing that a transparent evacuation would have required the presence of international observers. Nationalist groups, on the other hand, welcomed the reduction of the Palestinian presence in Gaza as an “inevitable and favorable” effect of the conflict.
In the silence of the dark corridors leading from Kerem Shalom to Ramon, in the hidden layovers in Europe, on the unknown routes leading to Africa and Asia, a profound transformation of the Palestinian human fabric is taking place. A transformation that raises the most difficult question: to what extent are these movements truly voluntary, and to what extent are they the result of invisible pressure pushing Gazans away from their land, on a journey of no return that no one has the courage to call by its name.
Our countries are also responsible for this situation, as they are failing to demand the immediate dispatch of international observers to Gaza, failing to push decisively for the recognition of the Palestinian state, and failing to guarantee evacuations through humanitarian corridors monitored by independent bodies. We continue to offer the Palestinians unacceptable compromises and, in doing so, we make ourselves jointly responsible for yet another tragedy inflicted on a people. We delude ourselves into thinking we can absolve ourselves by setting up superficial solutions, saving and welcoming just a few individuals as beneficiaries of a right that should never apply only in exceptional cases: the right to live.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/via-da-gaza-deportazioni-mascherate-da-evacuazioni on 2025-11-18