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A planeload of Gazans who were flown controversially from Israel to South Africa arriving in Johannesburg last fall. One flight occurred in October and another in November, totaling 329 Palestinians landing in the African country, but 137 have since flown on to other countries. The remaining arrivals are seeking asylum. Months later, their applications still await decisions by the South African government. STRUISBAAI, South Africa — Two years ago, Abdul Haddad* spent the Christmas season living in a tent on a beach in Gaza amid the horrendous conditions of the Israeli onslaught on the Palestinian territory. Like hundreds of thousands of other people there, he had lost his home in the war that Israel launched in response to the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023.
This past Christmas season, Haddad was in a very different situation, on a very different beach and very different continent — relaxing at the popular South African coastal holiday destination of Struisbaai, at the southernmost tip of Africa. (*Haddad is not his real name.)
He is among the nearly 200 Palestinian refugees from Gaza who are waiting in South Africa for the government to process their applications for asylum and residence after they arrived three months ago on two charter flights from Israel, sparking a storm of controversy.
A total of 329 Palestinians arrived on the flights, occurring on Oct. 28 and Nov. 13, 2025, but 137 of them have since flown on to third countries, including Kuwait, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia. The 192 who remained have since been joined by two born-in-South Africa babies.
Those who arrived in Johannesburg on the first flight were processed through immigration without hiccups and given 90-day visas, standard procedure for visiting Palestinians. This flight received no media attention, but when the second flight arrived unannounced two weeks later, the South African government smelled a rat and refused to let the 153 people on board disembark.
After being held on the plane for about 12 hours, they were allowed to get off when the South African-based nonprofit disaster relief organization Gift of the Givers provided accommodation for them, offering to take care of their needs while their asylum applications were processed.
Where the Gazans are living
The Gazans are now scattered around the Johannesburg/Pretoria area, living in a range of accommodations, including in the homes of people associated with Gift of the Givers. The government office processing their applications is located in Pretoria, the administrative capital, so they are staying nearby until the asylum process is complete.
The South African government, which has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, accused the country of organizing the charter flights — for which the refugees paid up to $2,000 each — as part of its campaign to “depopulate” Gaza. It said no more flights would be allowed in and froze the issuing of 90-day visas for Palestinians.
“We do not want any further flights to come our way because this is a clear agenda to cleanse the Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank,” Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said in November. “It’s a clearly orchestrated operation.”
A volunteer at Gift of the Givers, Sarah Oosthuizen, told PassBlue that the 194 refugees were “very, very normal families” who had been caught in an impossible situation and regarded their own survival as more important than how the charter flights might look to critics of Israel around the world.
“I don’t know how to describe the levels of loss and terror they’ve experienced,” she said in a call to PassBlue. “All of them have lost something, some of them have lost everything, all of them, including their children, have witnessed things that no sane human being would ever want their children to see.
“You reach a stage where your thinking as a human is one of survival, to leave to safety. Where that is, and what it represents, becomes less important. These are just people and they just want safety and a future. That’s it.”
Many of the Palestinians on the flights have said that when they got on the planes at Ramon airport near Eilat in Israel, they were not sure of the destination. Some thought they were going to Indonesia or Malaysia, but none realized they were headed to South Africa.
‘I want to give back’
The flights were organized by Al-Majd Europe, which Al Jazeera has described as a shell company tied to Israel.
A year ago, Israel and the United States administration of President Trump enthusiastically touted a plan to move Palestinians out of Gaza en masse, and several countries or territories in Africa, including Somaliland and South Sudan, were mentioned as possible destinations. But in December last year, the Times of Israel reported that the plan was dead because Trump was backing away from it.
Oosthuizen said the refugees, who were not allowed to take any luggage on their flights, were nervous about the future.
“They still need to create lives; obviously the next hurdle once your paperwork is through, you need to find employment. The children would love to go to South African schools and integrate. They don’t want to live here in little pockets of exclusion, the parents want their children to have safe and integrated lives here. That’s very much the attitude that they are bringing,” Oosthuizen said.
“Those who are staying are saying, ‘If I stay, I want to serve, I want to give back, I want to be meaningful, I want to integrate.’ Which is lovely.”
Gift of the Givers is not sharing the identities of the Palestinians until their asylum applications are final. Some of the refugees spoke to media outlets in the days after their arrival, but most are now keeping a low profile until the government has ruled on their cases.
The Department of Home Affairs, which handles asylum applications, did not respond to questions. But given that South Africa has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, it would seem logical that it would approve the asylum requests.
“They’ll be hearing very soon what their status is,” Oosthuizen said.
“We hope they can achieve what they want,” she added. “I’ve had an immense privilege of meeting all of them, I’ve had about 400 cups of strong, black coffee, they are the most generous lovely, people. I can happily tell you I haven’t met a single terrorist! I can assure you I’ve met lots of lovely mothers and fathers and children.”
Born on Christmas Eve
The scars of what they have endured would be with them for a long time, she said.
“War and conflict cast a very long generational shadow. You can still see the toll on people, people who struggle to sleep. We spent time with the children, when aeroplanes come over, they flinch. They talk about things like that that are scary.”
One of the “refugee brothers” had been in Struisbaai — in the Western Cape Province — to try to destress, Oosthuizen said. “He spent the first eight months of the genocide in Gaza, living on a tent on the beach. We’ve brought him down from Johannesburg for a bit of a break.”
Oosthuizen said one refugee on the second plane was eight months pregnant and that it had been a “major medical concern” that she was stuck in the hot cabin for 12 hours at Johannesburg airport.
“So that little baby arrived, and one of our babies arrived on Christmas Eve, which I thought was a beautiful picture of South Africa’s solidarity. This little Palestinian baby, conceived in the genocide, born in South Africa and delivered by such generous medical professionals who all gave of their expertise and their time, and this little baby born on a Christian holiday to a Palestinian refugee. . . . I just thought it was such a beautiful picture. And the family are doing well.”
Oosthuizen said the refugees included a mother and three daughters from a family that had been torn apart by the war in Gaza — her husband had been working in Kuwait when it broke out.
When the war erupted, she said, “The mom was pregnant, she had two little daughters too, so she had her baby alone in Gaza, and when she travelled here she traveled as a single parent with these three little ones.”
The mother and her children have since flown to Kuwait and been reunited with the father. “It was complicated but also beautiful,” Oosthuizen said. “They sent us the most lovely photos and blow-by-blow account of their journey to Kuwait, the pictures of dad. There was a little two-year-old clinging to mommy because she doesn’t quite know daddy yet. But we have contact with them and it’s going better, and they’re settling. Those are the stories of horrific hardship where people were separated and coming together.”