South Africa on Sunday revoked visa-free entry for Palestinian passport holders, following an investigation into a chartered flight that brought dozens of people from Gaza into the country without the required documentation last month. In a statement, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) said its probe confirmed “deliberate and ongoing abuse of the 90-day visa exemption for Palestinian ordinary passport holders by Israeli actors linked to ‘voluntary emigration’ efforts for residents of the Gaza Strip.”
The controversy erupted in mid-November when 153 Palestinians – men, women, and children – arrived in Johannesburg on a flight from Nairobi. They were held onboard for more than 12 hours because their passports lacked Israeli exit stamps.
President Cyril Ramaphosa at the time ordered an inquiry, describing the aircraft as “mysterious” and suggesting its passengers had been “flushed out” of Gaza by Israel. “These are residents of Gaza who, in a rather mysterious way, were put on a plane that transited through Nairobi and then landed here,” he said.
The DHA later authorised the group’s entry after the humanitarian organisation Gift of the Givers guaranteed support for the travellers. Al Jazeera reported that the flight was arranged by a controversial agency operating in close coordination with the Israeli military.
Israeli authorities, for their part, said the group had been permitted to leave only after a third country agreed to receive them.
According to the DHA, investigations into two separate flights carrying Palestinians revealed “systematic abuse” of South Africa’s short-stay visa exemptions, with the travel arrangements “designed… to relocate Palestinians from Gaza.” The second flight referenced by the department was an earlier arrival on 28 October, which carried 176 Palestinians.
“Rather than using ordinary commercial flights, entire airplanes were chartered not by the travellers themselves, but by intermediaries,” the department said, noting that most passengers held one-way tickets to South Africa and were prohibited from bringing luggage.
