Khaberni - "Haaretz" unveiled on Sunday that the entity behind the mysterious flights that transfer Palestinians from the Gaza Strip via Ramon Airport is an association managed by a dual Israeli-Estonian national.
The newspaper mentioned that it turned out to be merely a front for a consultancy firm registered in Estonia.
"Haaretz" reported in its investigation that the association offers Palestinians to pay about $2,000 for a seat on chartered flights heading to distant countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Africa.
It added that the Directorate of Voluntary Immigration at the Israeli Ministry of Defense referred the activity of this entity to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories to coordinate the departure of Palestinians from the sector.
The same source indicated that several flights chartered by this entity took off in recent months from Ramon Airport near Eilat, carrying groups of Gazans, indicating a semi-organized route for an increasing number of departures, rather than just individual cases.
The association’s website claims it was founded in Germany and has offices in East Jerusalem although the journalistic investigation showed that actual registration happens in Estonia and that the activity is managed via that consultancy firm.
Moreover, the website of the institution does not include phone numbers or addresses, and its partner list is empty even though it works with 15 international bodies.
This institution, which was founded in 2010, works on the migration of Palestinians from the sector under the guise of “helping,” as it claims to "assist Muslim communities in conflict zones", according to the newspaper, which did not provide further details about it.
In addition, the links leading to its social media pages do not lead to any real pages.
There is no identifying information about its management on the association's site, but an old version of it showcased a logo of a company registered in Estonia called "Talent Globus".
A page on the website details "the conditions for voluntary migration from the Gaza Strip", and explicitly mentions that "Talent Globus" organizes those trips.
According to the site, the company ostensibly operates in the consulting and workforce recruitment field but the site displays generic images sourced from the internet.
Research in the Estonian commercial register shows that "Talent Globus" was founded a year ago by Tomer Yanar Lind.
According to the commercial register in Britain, Lind founded four companies in the country over the past decade, three of which are no longer active.
Company documents indicate that he was born in 1989 and holds Israeli and Estonian nationality, and on his "LinkedIn" page, Lind mentioned that he assists Gazans.
"Haaretz" confirmed that when they contacted his phone number in London, Lind did not deny his involvement in organizing the Gazans' departure but refused to disclose the entity behind the association, saying, "I'm not interested in commenting at this stage, maybe later."
Working method
According to the investigation, the address of the "Al Majd Association" website has recently been spreading on social media in Gaza.
The site invites Palestinians wishing to leave the sector to fill in their information, and indeed many have submitted requests to leave.
In this context, "Haaretz" said that after obtaining preliminary approval, each departure candidate receives instructions to transfer money to the association ranging between $1,500 and $2,700.
The candidate is then added to a "WhatsApp" group where updates related to the departure timing are sent, and communications between the association and Gazans are only via WhatsApp messages from an apparently Israeli phone number.
The newspaper explained that the first group, consisting of 57 Gazans, left the sector on May 27.
It added that on the evening before the departure, dozens of Palestinians received a message containing a precise address inside the sector they had to reach, from where they boarded buses to the Kerem Shalom crossing.
"After undergoing an Israeli security check, the caravan headed to Ramon Airport, where the Gazans boarded a chartered plane operated by the Romanian company Fly Lili."
The plane flew to Budapest, and from there, the travelers continued their journey to Indonesia and Malaysia, noting that the second group, which included 150 Palestinians, departed on October 27.
The operation was similar, three buses set off from the center of the sector via the Kerem Shalom crossing.
In images from the crossing obtained by "Haaretz", several Gazans were seen wearing shirts and hats bearing the logo "Al Majd".
This time, the group took off with a chartered plane operated by the Romanian company FlyYo to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, according to the investigation.
In Nairobi, they transferred to a chartered plane operated by the company Lift, which took them to Johannesburg.
It confirmed that, unlike this week's trip, the Gazans then were allowed to enter the country without any problems, and some of them later posted on social media showing their new lives in South Africa.
"Yedioth Ahronoth" clarified that an organization called "Al Majd", based in Jerusalem, was responsible for taking more than 150 Palestinians out of the sector.
The newspaper quoted an unnamed Israeli military official saying, "Israel accompanied the buses transporting the travelers from a meeting point in Gaza to the Kerem Shalom crossing controlled by Tel Aviv, from where they were transported by other buses to Ramon Airport (Negev), from which the plane took off".
The newspaper continued, saying: "The secrecy of the trip raised concerns of human rights organizations, which warned that it might be part of an Israeli endeavor to displace Palestinians from the sector".
It quoted the Israeli government activities coordinator in the Palestinian territories, Ghassan Alyan, saying that “the Palestinians left the sector after Tel Aviv received permission from a third country to accommodate them without naming it”.
"Yedioth Ahronoth" noted that about 40,000 Palestinians have left the sector since the onset of the war on Gaza on October 8, 2023.
Israel, which controls more than half of the area of Gaza Strip, previously discussed with several countries including South Sudan, the possibility of relocating Gazans to these countries, according to what "Associated Press" reported last August.
The newspaper also mentioned that Israeli government ministers have frequently spoken about the idea of displacing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, as part of the genocidal war that Tel Aviv waged over two years.
