Palestinians

Seven others have been wounded in the latest attacks carried out in violation of the October ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hamas.

Three people have been killed and seven wounded in Israeli attacks in different areas of the Gaza Strip in the latest violation of the fragile ceasefire, according to medical sources.

Sources told Al Jazeera that the areas Israeli raids targeted overnight into Sunday included Rafah and Khan Younis in southern Gaza, the Zeitoun neighbourhood in the southeast of Gaza City and various other neighbourhoods across the besieged enclave.

In one attack, an Israeli quadcopter killed a Palestinian man who was being taken to a hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that two men were killed by Israeli military gunfire east of the Zeitoun.

Separately, the Israeli army reported on Saturday that its forces killed three Palestinians in southern and northern Gaza neighbourhoods, claiming that they posed a threat to Israeli forces, with one specifically stealing military equipment.

It was not immediately clear if the deaths were caused by the same incidents reported by Gaza sources.

Meanwhile, a seven-day-old Palestinian infant died due to the extreme cold on Saturday as the Israeli blockade of vital necessities worsens the humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

Mahmoud al-Aqraa died in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza amid rapidly decreasing temperatures, according to medical sources.

‘Catastrophe’

Palestinians living in makeshift tents have little protection from strong winds and rain, as most shelters are made of thin canvas and plastic sheets.

Israel continues to block or limit the number of vital needs entering the enclaves, such as tents, mobile homes or materials to fix tents, in violation of the ceasefire it agreed with Hamas in October, as well as its obligations under international law as the occupying power in the Strip.

Temperatures at night in Gaza have fallen to as low as 9 degrees Celsius (48 degrees Fahrenheit) in recent days.

In a statement, the Gaza Civil Defence warned of a “catastrophe” due to the “low-pressure system that caused serious damage to temporary shelters, and thousands of tents were completely damaged”.

It also urged citizens to secure their tents to prevent them from being blown away, given that mobile homes are not allowed to enter.

“What is happening is not a weather crisis, but a direct result of preventing the entry of building materials and disrupting reconstruction, as people are living in torn tents and cracked houses without safety or dignity,” Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal said.

Nearly 80 percent of buildings in the enclave have been destroyed or damaged by Israel during its more than two-year war, according to the United Nations, rendering hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

Somalia’s minister of defence, Ahmed Moalim Fiqi, has accused Israel of planning to forcibly displace Palestinians to the breakaway region of Somaliland, denouncing the alleged plan as a “serious violation” of international law.

In an interview with Al Jazeera on Saturday, Fiqi called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to withdraw his diplomatic recognition of the “separatist region”, calling the move announced late last year a “direct attack” on Somalia’s sovereignty.

“Israel has long had goals and plans to divide countries – maybe before 20 years – and it wants to divide the map of the Middle East and control its countries… this is why they found this separatist group in northwestern Somalia,” Fiqi told Al Jazeera.

“We have confirmed information that Israel has a plan to transfer Palestinians and to send them to [Somaliland],” he added, without elaborating.

Fiqi’s comments came amid a global outcry over Netanyahu’s decision in December to recognise Somaliland, a breakaway part of Somalia comprising the northwestern portion of what was once the British Protectorate.

The move made Israel the first country in the world to recognise Somaliland as an independent state and came months after The Associated Press news agency reported that Israeli officials had contacted parties in Somalia, Somaliland and Sudan to discuss using their territory for forcibly displacing Palestinians amid its genocidal war on Gaza.

Somalia denounced the Israeli move, with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud telling Al Jazeera that Somaliland had accepted three conditions from Israel: The resettlement of Palestinians, the establishment of a military base on the coast of the Gulf of Aden, and joining the Abraham Accords to normalise ties with Israel.

Officials in Somaliland have denied agreeing to resettle Palestinians from Gaza, and say there have been no discussions on an Israeli military base in the area.

But Fiqi on Saturday reiterated that Israel “wants to create a military base to destabilise the region” on the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea.

“I see it as an occupation to destabilise the area,” Fiqi added.

He also stressed that Israel has no legal right to grant legitimacy to a region within a sovereign state.

Somaliland first declared independence from Somalia in 1991, but it has failed to gain recognition from any United Nations member state since.

Israel’s world-first announcement triggered protests in Somalia and swift criticisms from dozens of countries and organisations, including Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and the African Union.

Fiqi told Al Jazeera that Israel’s move falls into a decades-long goal to control the Middle East and accused Israel of exploiting separatist movements in the region. Roughly half of the areas formerly known as Somaliland have declared their affiliation with Somalia over the past two years, he added.

The minister praised the countries that had condemned Israel and pledged that Somalia would lean on all diplomatic and legal means to reject Israel’s “violation”.

He also commended United States President Donald Trump’s administration for not recognising Somaliland.

Although the US was the only member of the 15-member United Nations Security Council that did not condemn Israel for the recognition on December 30, it said its position on Somaliland had not changed.

For its part, Somaliland’s governing party has defended its newfound relations with Israel after Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar travelled to Hargeisa, the region’s largest city and self-declared capital, earlier this week.

Hersi Ali Haji Hassan, chairman of the governing Waddani party, told Al Jazeera days later that Somaliland was “not in a position to choose” who provided it with legitimacy after decades of being spurned by the international community.

“We are in a state of necessity for official international recognition,” Hassan said. “There is no choice before us but to welcome any country that recognises our existential right.”

Hassan did not deny the prospect of a potential military base.

“We have started diplomatic relations… This topic [a military base] has not been touched upon now,” he said.

When pressed on whether Somaliland would accept such a request in the future, Hassan said only to “ask the question when the time comes”, calling the line of inquiry “untimely”.

Israeli think tanks say Somaliland’s location, at the gateway to the Red Sea and across from Yemen, make it a strategic site for operations against the Yemeni Houthi rebel group, which imposed a naval blockade on Israeli-linked shipping before the US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza.

The Institute for National Security Studies, in a November report, said Somaliland’s territory could “serve as a forward base” for intelligence monitoring of the Houthis and serve “a platform for direct operations” against them.

The Houthis said that any Israeli presence would be a target, a statement Somaliland’s former intelligence chief, Mostafa Hasan, said amounted to a declaration of war.

Israel has launched intense artillery and helicopter attacks on southern Gaza despite a United States-brokered ceasefire, bombing a tent housing displaced Palestinians and killing a five-year-old girl and her uncle, according to officials.

The killings on Monday brought the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since the truce came into effect in October to at least 422, according to Gaza health authorities.

The Nasser Medical Complex in southern Khan Younis said the deadly Israeli strike hit a tent in the coastal al-Mawasi area, and that four others, including children, were also wounded.

Israel’s military said it struck a Hamas fighter who was planning to attack Israeli forces “in the immediate timeframe”. But the military did not provide evidence for the claim, and it was not clear if its statement referred to the tent attack.

Despite the ceasefire, Israeli forces have continued near-daily attacks on Gaza and have maintained restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid. Much of the enclave has been devastated by Israel’s genocidal war, with roughly 88 percent of buildings damaged or destroyed, Palestinian officials say.

Most of Gaza’s two million people are now living in tents, makeshift shelters or damaged buildings in areas vacated by Israeli troops.

The Palestinian Civil Defence said on Monday that another Palestinian home damaged in earlier Israeli strikes collapsed in the central Maghazi camp, killing a 29-year-old father and his eight-year-old son.

But the rescue service said in a subsequent statement that it was unable to respond to requests to remove hazards caused by damaged buildings because of a lack of equipment and continuing fuel shortages.

The Gaza ceasefire, agreed upon after more than two years of Israeli attacks that killed more than 71,000 people, is being implemented in phases. The first stage includes exchanges of captives and prisoners, increased humanitarian aid and the reopening of Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Hamas has freed all remaining living captives and returned dozens of bodies, except for one, while Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners, including some serving life sentences.

Hopes for Rafah crossing

However, humanitarian groups say that Israeli restrictions continue to hamper aid deliveries, while Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt remains closed. The crossing had long been Gaza’s only connection to the outside world until the Israeli military occupied the Palestinian side in May 2024.

Israel’s Kan broadcaster reported on January 1 that Israeli authorities are preparing to reopen the crossing in “both directions” following pressure from US President Donald Trump.

If confirmed, it would mark a shift from an earlier Israeli policy that stated the crossing would only open “exclusively for the exit of residents from the Gaza Strip to Egypt”. The policy drew condemnation from regional governments, including Egypt and Qatar, with officials warning against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

The latest Israeli report has left many Palestinians hopeful.

Tasnim Jaras, a student in Gaza City, told Al Jazeera that it was her “dream that the crossing opens so we can continue our education”.

Moaeen al-Jarousha, who was wounded in the war, said he needed to leave Gaza to receive medical treatment abroad. “I need immediate medical intervention. I live in very difficult conditions,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said Palestinians in Gaza have been waiting for the crossing to open for a long time.

“For many, this isn’t about travel, it’s about survival. Parents are asking about medical access they haven’t been able to obtain over the past two years. Students think of this as an opportunity to continue their education,” he said.

“And for many families, this is an opportunity to reunite with family members who have been separated for too long. But hope here is never simple. People here have heard about these announcements numerous times, and many recall how quickly it shut again,” he added.

Israel, meanwhile, continues to retain control of 53 percent of Gaza, and witnesses on Monday reported continued demolitions of residential homes in the eastern Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City.

The Israeli military also said it attacked a Palestinian who had crossed the so-called “yellow line” – an unmarked boundary where the Israeli military repositioned itself when the truce came into effect – in southern Gaza on Monday with the aim of “removing the threat”. It did not provide evidence for the claim.

Israel also said it had carried out strikes against Hezbollah and Hamas targets in southern and eastern Lebanon.

In an exclusive interview, Somalia’s president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud told Al Jazeera that the breakaway region of Somaliland has agreed to accept displaced Palestinians being relocated there in exchange for recognition. Somaliland officials have rejected the allegations.

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza, surrounded by tents and debris, are suffering through more winter rains after two years of Israeli bombardment destroyed much of the Strip.

A polar low-pressure system accompanied by heavy rain and strong winds swept across the Gaza Strip on Saturday. It is the third polar low to affect the Palestinian territory this winter, with a fourth low-pressure system forecast to hit the area starting on Monday, meteorologist Laith al-Allami told the Anadolu news agency.

Many families have been living in tents since late 2023, for most of the duration of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

The enclave is imminently facing freezing temperatures, rain and strong winds, as the authorities warn the downpour could intensify into a full-blown storm.

Mohammed Maslah, a displaced Palestinian now in Gaza City, told Al Jazeera in his rugged tent that he did not have a choice but to stay there.

“I could not find anywhere to live in Gaza, except Gaza Port,” he told Al Jazeera. “I’m forced to stay here because my home is under Israeli control. After just a few hours of rain, we were soaked.”

In Deir al-Balah, Shaima Wadi, a mother of four children who was displaced from Jabaliya in the north, spoke to the Associated Press. “We have been living in this tent for two years. Every time it rains and the tent collapses over our heads, we try to put up new pieces of wood,” she said. “With how expensive everything has become, and without any income, we can barely afford clothes for our children or mattresses for them to sleep on.”

The heavy rains earlier this month flooded tents and makeshift shelters across Gaza, where most of the buildings have been destroyed or damaged by Israeli attacks.

So far in December, at least 15 people, including three babies, died from hypothermia following rains and plunging temperatures, with several buildings collapsing, according to the authorities in Gaza. Aid organisations have called for Israel to allow more shelters and other humanitarian aid into the territory.

Ibrahim Abu al-Reesh, head of field operations for the Civil Defence in the Gaza Port area, said that his teams responded to various distress calls as weather conditions got harsher in places where displaced people set up fragile tents.

“We worked hard to cover some of these damaged tents with plastic sheets after they were flooded by rainwater,” he told Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim Al Khalili, reporting from Gaza City, said that winter has been adding to the suffering of tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians who do not have safe shelters.

“The same misery repeats as each rain fills neighbourhoods with muddy water,” he said.

Ceasefire talks

As Palestinians face dire conditions in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit Washington, DC, in the coming days while negotiators and others discuss the second stage of the ceasefire that took effect on October 10.

The progress in the peace process has been slow. Challenges in phase two of the ceasefire include the deployment of an international stabilisation force, a technocratic governing body for Gaza, the proposed disarmament of Hamas and further Israeli troop withdrawals from the territory.

So far, the agreement has partially held despite Israel’s repeated violations.

Since the ceasefire went into effect, more than 414 Palestinians have been killed and 1,142 wounded, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

It also said the bodies of 679 people were pulled from the rubble during the same period, as the truce makes it safer to search for the remains of people killed earlier.

The ministry on Saturday said that 29 bodies, including 25 recovered from under the rubble, had been brought to local hospitals over the past 48 hours.

The overall Palestinian death toll from Israel’s war has risen to at least 71,266, the ministry said, and another 171,219 have been wounded.

Eight-month-old among multiple Palestinians wounded in attacks across the occupied West Bank.

Five Israeli settlers have been arrested over their alleged involvement in an attack on a Palestinian home that wounded an eight-month-old baby in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the infant suffered “moderate injuries to the face and head” in the attack that took place late on Wednesday involving “a group of armed settlers” who were throwing stones at homes and property in the town of Sair, north of Hebron.

Israeli police on Thursday said five settlers were arrested after they received reports of “stones being thrown by Israeli civilians toward a Palestinian home”.

Israeli settlements and outposts are Jewish-only communities built on Palestinian land that are illegal under international law. They can range in size from a single dwelling to a collection of high rises. About 700,000 settlers live in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli advocacy group Peace Now.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, a 17-year-old boy was shot and dozens of Palestinians suffered tear gas inhalation during an Israeli army raid in the town of Beit Furik, east of Nablus, Wafa reported.

The report added that “Israeli forces carried out a widespread incursion into the town, firing live bullets and tear gas canisters across its neighborhoods”.

Israeli forces also detained three Palestinians from Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, after settler attacks.

Also in Masafer Yatta, Israeli forces raided homes and tents belonging to residents, searched them and vandalised their contents before detaining one resident.

Another Palestinian man was wounded in a settler attack in the town of Deir Jarir, east of Ramallah.

Local sources said armed settlers attacked homes near the village entrance, resulting in minor injuries to a young man.

Pope Leo has decried conditions ‍for Palestinians in ‍Gaza in his first Christmas sermon as pontiff, in an unusually direct appeal during what is normally a solemn, spiritual service on the day Christians across the globe celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

Leo, the first American ⁠pope, said on Thursday that the story of Jesus being born in a stable showed that God ​had “pitched his fragile tent” among the people of the world.

“How, then, ‍can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold?” he asked.

Leo, celebrating his first Christmas after being elected in May by the ‍world’s cardinals to ⁠succeed the late Pope Francis, has a quieter, more diplomatic style than his predecessor and usually refrains from making political references in his sermons.

But the new pope has also lamented the conditions for Palestinians in Gaza several times recently and told journalists last month that the only solution in the decades-long conflict between Israel and Palestine must include a Palestinian state.

Israel ​and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in October ‌after two years of intense bombardment and military operations in Gaza, but humanitarian agencies say there is still too little aid getting into the largely destroyed Strip, where nearly the entire population is homeless after being displaced by Israeli attacks.

In Thursday’s service with thousands in ‌St Peter’s Basilica, Leo also lamented conditions for the homeless across the globe and the destruction caused by the wars ‌roiling the world.

“Fragile is the flesh of defenceless ⁠populations, tried by so many wars, ongoing or concluded, leaving behind rubble and open wounds,” said the pope.

“Fragile are the minds and lives of young people forced to take up arms, who on the ‌front lines feel the senselessness of what is asked of them and the falsehoods that fill the pompous speeches of those who send them to their deaths,” he ‍added.

In a later appeal during the “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) message and blessing given by the pope at Christmas and Easter, Leo called for an end to all global wars, lamenting conflicts, ‌political, social or military, in Ukraine, Sudan, Mali, Myanmar, and Thailand and Cambodia, among others.

‘The wounds are deep’

Ahead of the pope’s mass, in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, the Christian community began celebrating its first festive Christmas in more than two years, as the Palestinian city and biblical birthplace of Jesus emerges from the shadow of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Throughout the war, a sombre tone had marked Christmases in Bethlehem. But celebrations returned on Wednesday with parades and music. Hundreds of worshippers also gathered for mass at the Church of the Nativity on Wednesday night.

With pews filled long before midnight, many stood or sat on the floor for the traditional mass to usher in Christmas Day.

At 11:15 pm (21:15 GMT), organ music rang out as a procession of dozens of clergymen entered, followed by Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who blessed the crowd with signs of the cross.

In his homily, Pizzaballa urged peace, hope and rebirth, saying the Nativity story still held relevance in the turbulence of modern times.

He also spoke of his visit to Gaza over the weekend, where he said “suffering is still present” despite the ceasefire. In the Strip, hundreds of thousands of people face a bleak winter in makeshift tents.

“The wounds are deep, yet I have to say, here too, there too, their proclamation of Christmas resounds,” Pizzaballa said. “When I met them, I was struck by their strength and desire to start over.”

In Bethlehem, hundreds also took part in the parade down the narrow Star Street on Wednesday, while a dense crowd massed in the square. As darkness fell, multi-coloured lights shone over Manger Square and a towering Christmas tree glittered next to the Church of the Nativity.

The basilica dates back to the fourth century and was built on top of a grotto where Christians believe Jesus was born more than 2,000 years ago.

Bethlehem residents hoped the return of Christmas festivities would breathe life back into the city.

The Halawa family’s building still stands two storeys above the rubble in Gaza City, a rare survivor after two years of nonstop Israeli air attacks that levelled buildings across the besieged Palestinian enclave.

One section has collapsed, with bent metal rods protruding from where a roof once existed. The family built a narrow set of creaking wooden steps to access their home, though these makeshift stairs threaten to give way at any moment. Yet amid the destruction, it remains home.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, destroyed or damaged more than 70 percent of the buildings, and displaced most of the territory’s 2.3 million residents.

In October, Israel reached an agreement to cease fire, but its attacks have not stopped. It has killed more than 400 Palestinians since then, in violation of the truce agreement. It has also not allowed the full entry of aid.

Reconstruction has not begun and is projected to take years, as Israel has kept total control over what goes in and comes out of the enclave. This means families like the Halawas are struggling to rebuild their lives.

The family abandoned their home three months after the war began on October 7, 2023. They returned during the fragile calm established by the truce. Like many others, this family of seven found living in their damaged residence preferable to tent life, particularly as winter rains flooded tent shelters over the past weeks.

In one damaged room, Amani Halawa brewed coffee in a small tin over a fire while thin rays of light filtered through concrete fragments. Amani, her husband Mohammed, and their children have made repairs using concrete scraps, hanging backpacks from exposed metal rods and arranging pots and pans across the kitchen floor.

The home’s walls feature a painted tree and messages to family members separated by the conflict.

Throughout damaged apartments in Gaza City, daily life persists, even as families lie awake fearing their walls might collapse. Health officials report that at least 11 people died from building collapses in a single week in December.

In her home, Sahar Taroush swept dust from carpets placed over rubble. Her daughter Bisan’s face glowed in the light of a computer screen as she watched a movie beside gaping holes in the wall.

On another building’s cracked wall, a family displayed a torn photo of their grandfather on horseback from his time serving in the Palestinian Authority’s security forces during the 1990s. Nearby, a man reclined on a bed precariously balanced on a damaged balcony, scrolling through his phone above the devastated al-Karama neighbourhood.

Deadly attack comes as Gaza government media office says Israel violated ceasefire 875 times since it began in October.

Israeli forces have killed at least two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as Israel continues to violate a ceasefire agreement and block desperately needed humanitarian aid to the war-ravaged coastal enclave.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported on Monday that two people were killed after Israeli troops opened fire in the Shujayea neighbourhood of eastern Gaza City.

Their deaths bring the total number of Palestinians reported killed in Gaza over the past 24 hours to at least 12, including eight whose bodies were recovered from the rubble in the territory.

The Gaza City attack is the latest in hundreds of Israeli violations of a United States-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which came into effect on October 10.

Gaza’s Government Media Office on Monday condemned Israel’s “serious and systematic violations” of the truce, noting that the Israeli authorities had breached the ceasefire 875 times since it came into force.

That includes continued Israeli air and artillery attacks, unlawful demolitions of Palestinian homes and other civilian infrastructure, and at least 265 incidents of Israeli troops shooting Palestinian civilians, the office said in a statement.

At least 411 Palestinians have been killed and 1,112 others wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since the ceasefire began, it added.

Worsening shelter conditions

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families displaced by Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza continue to grapple with a lack of humanitarian supplies, including adequate food, medicine and shelter.

As the occupying power in Gaza, Israel has an obligation under international law to provide for the needs of Palestinians there.

But the United Nations and other humanitarian groups say it has systematically failed to allow unimpeded deliveries of aid into Gaza.

The situation has been worsened by a series of winter storms that have pummelled the Strip in recent weeks, with rights groups saying Israel’s refusal to allow tents, blankets and other supplies into Gaza is part of its genocidal policy and threatening Palestinian lives.

On Monday, the Gaza Government Media Office said that only 17,819 trucks entered the territory out of the 43,800 that were supposed to be allowed in since the ceasefire came into effect in October.

That amounts to an average of just 244 trucks per day – far below the 600 trucks that Israel agreed to allow into Gaza daily under the ceasefire agreement, the office said.

On Monday, a spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres reiterated the call “for the lifting of all restrictions of the entry of aid into Gaza, including shelter material”.

“Over the past 24 hours, and despite the ceasefire, we have continued to receive reports of air strikes, shelling and gunfire in all five governorates of Gaza. This has resulted in reported casualties and disruptions to humanitarian operations,” Stephane Dujarric said.

He said that the UN’s humanitarian partners are working to address the significant shelter needs, particularly for displaced families living in unsafe conditions.

“Our partners continue to work to improve access to dignified shelter for approximately 1.3 million people in Gaza in the past week, about 3,500 families affected by storms are living in flood prone areas,” he said.

Dujarric said that aid deliveries have included tents, bedding sets, mattresses and blankets, as well as winter clothing for children, but the needs remain overwhelming.

The appeals come a day after the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said that a lack of drugs and other healthcare supplies was making it difficult to provide care to patients.

Nearly all of Gaza’s hospitals and healthcare facilities were attacked during Israel’s two-year bombardment of the territory, damaging at least 125 facilities, including 34 hospitals.

The Israeli army has killed at least 70,937 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, and injured 171,192 others since its genocidal war began in October 2023.

A shell company with Israeli ties exploited Palestinians desperate to flee the ongoing war in Gaza, charging them large sums of money to covertly exit the country in what may be an official plan to ethnically cleanse the territory.

In an exclusive digital investigation, Al Jazeera probed last month’s mystery flight that spirited 153 passengers from Gaza to South Africa, unearthing figures working for Al-Majd Europe, an unregistered front organisation that falsely claimed to be working for humanitarian aims.

The Palestinians arrived at OR Tambo International Airport, which serves the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria, on November 13. Refused entry by border police as they did not have departure stamps from Israel on their passports, they were stuck on the aircraft for 12 hours before being allowed to disembark.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa admitted the passengers “out of compassion”, but said at the time that his government, which has long been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, would investigate as it seemed that they had been “flushed out” of the Gaza Strip.

Forced evacuations

Israeli officials have previously openly stated that they support what they have termed the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza, in what effectively would be their forced evacuation.

In March 2025, Israel’s security cabinet set up a controversial bureau to get Palestinians to leave Gaza voluntarily, which was headed by former deputy director of the Ministry of Defence, Yaakov Blitstein. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said at the time that 40 percent of Gaza residents were “interested in emigrating”.

The previous month, Al-Majd Europe set up its online presence with a new website stating that it focused on relief efforts in Muslim countries, specifically “for Gazans wishing to exit Gaza”, with claims that it had organised mobile health clinics in the enclave and trips for Palestinian doctors abroad that Al Jazeera later discovered to be false.

A passenger from the November flight to South Africa, whose identity was kept hidden for his own protection, said he contacted the organisation after finding the link online, which promised not only a way out of Gaza, but safety and medical treatment for injuries. “Initially, it said it was free. Then they asked for $1,400 [per person]. Then the price went up to $2,500,” he said.

Testimonies gathered by Al Jazeera showed that payments requested varied from $1,000-2,000 per person, with strict criteria for signing up. Only families would be accepted on condition that they kept their departure secret, with details on flight departures only released a few hours before takeoff.

Passengers say they were told to arrive at the Karem Abu Salem crossing (called Kerem Shalom in Israel) in southern Gaza. When they arrived, their personal belongings were confiscated, and they were put on buses to Ramon Airport, near the Israeli city of Eilat, apparently by Israeli authorities.

Nigel Branken, a South African social worker who helped tho Palestinians on the plane, previously told Al Jazeera that there were “very clearly … marks of Israel involved in this operation to take people … to displace them”.

Evacuees told Al Jazeera they were not informed of their final destination until moments before boarding. They were then escorted onto a flight registered to a brand new airline called FLYYO without exit stamps in their travel documents.

Al Jazeera discovered that FLYYO has organised a number of similar flights, all taking off from Israeli airports, headed to Romania, Indonesia, South Africa, Kenya and other destinations.

False identity

Further scrutiny of Al-Majd Europe, which said it was a “humanitarian foundation established in 2010 in Germany”, with a head office located in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, later revealed its identity to be a sham.

Al Jazeera found no company registered by that name on any German or European database. The supposed address does not appear in official Jerusalem records, with the location on Google Maps corresponding to a hospital and a cafe.

While digging into the flights, Al Jazeera found two faces linked to the organisation – both Palestinians. The first was Muayad Hisham Saidam, which the organisation lists as its humanitarian projects manager in Gaza.

A search of Saidam’s name reveals that in May 2024, his wife created a public page to ask for donations to help her family leave Gaza. A year later, Saidam posted an image of himself boarding a plane chartered by Fly Lili, another Romanian airline, announcing that he was departing Gaza.

Using the angle of his shadow, time of the flight and the location of the plane on the Ramon Airport runway, Al Jazeera discovered Saidam was likely on a flight on May 27, 2025, which left Israel for Budapest, with 57 Palestinian passengers from Gaza.

It appears that Saidam’s identity is real, and that his family was likely evacuated to Indonesia. But his connection to Al-Majd Europe is unclear.

The second public face of the organisation belongs to a man named only as Adnan, though he appears to have no digital footprint.

On November 13, the day of the Johannesburg flight, a page containing a number of partner companies was deleted from Al-Majd’s website. Using open-source intelligence techniques, Al Jazeera recovered the page, which showed a number of well-known groups that Al-Majd claimed to have been working with, including the International Red Cross.

One name stood out: Talent Globus – a recruitment company established in Estonia in 2024, with a fund containing only $350. Its website lists four employees, including Director Tom Lind, a businessman with Israeli and Estonian citizenship.

Lind’s name has been linked to a number of other companies where he’s listed either as a founder or director – all without official registration or physical addresses.

Lind’s name appeared in reports by Israeli newspaper Haaretz as one of the coordinators of the flights of Palestinians leaving Ramon Airport.

In May 2025, Lind posted on his LinkedIn page that he had left Talent Globus, and was instead focused on “humanitarian efforts to support Palestinians”. He said that, alongside a network of individuals and groups, he had assisted with the evacuation of a “substantial number” of people from Gaza.

Photos of the other three employees of Talent Globus from its website – James Thompson, Maria Rodriguez, David Chen – all turned out to be stock images.

And much like those employees, it appears as though Al-Majd itself is a fake humanitarian group, leading to the question of what those behind the organisation are trying to hide.

Publicly, Israel has seemed to back down from its plan to encourage “voluntary emigration”. But Al Jazeera’s investigation poses more questions – is Al-Majd part of a bigger plan, a way to quietly empty Gaza of its inhabitants, one secret flight at a time?

Civil defence crews in Gaza are racing to rescue people trapped under war-damaged buildings that have collapsed from heavy rain and strong winds during a severe winter storm.