Even with little coverage in Western corporate-controlled media, it is not far-fetched to believe that Israel is perpetrating the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza.
A March 23 statement and a series of questions posed by the European Parliament, the legislative body of the European Union, were posted on www.europarl.europa.eu, which further point to this conclusion.
“On 23 March 2025, Israel’s security cabinet authorised the establishment of an agency to deport residents of Palestine, as part of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the occupied territories.
According to Defence Minister Israel Katz, this agency was created ‘in accordance with the vision of the U.S. President,’ in other words as a tool to implement Trump’s proposed plan to ‘clean out’ Gaza and turn it into an international holiday paradise.
The agency’s role is thus to carry out acts that the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute describes as war crimes, i.e. illegal population transfers and/or deportations,” the EU Parliament statement read before a series of questions was posed.
The questions were asked under the heading, “Israel steps up its ethnic cleansing of the occupied territories: agency established to deport the Palestinian population to third countries.”
The European Parliament called it a gross violation of human rights.
“Deporting people from occupied territories is explicitly prohibited by the 1949 Geneva Convention and is a gross violation of human rights that goes against the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which, inexplicably, the EU has not revoked,” the statement continued.
In a recent development, several Palestinians were transported from their homeland to South Africa.
According to a Nov. 16 article published by South Africa’s Daily Maverick, “In the past three weeks, two chartered flights carrying Palestinians fleeing Gaza have landed at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport. What followed was a conundrum for South African authorities.”
Long-time South African activist scholar Na’eem Jeenah, based in Johannesburg, told Middle East Eye that these developments smelled of Israel’s “desperation to quietly advance a policy of forced displacement of Palestinians with the (shadowy) group Al-Majd Europe, acting as a conduit for their removal.”
According to Middle East Eye, a plane carrying 153 Palestinians arrived in the African nation. “South African activists have alleged that Israel is using a shadowy humanitarian group to force Palestinians out of Gaza, in what they decried as the latest form of ethnic cleansing to take place since October 2023,” reported middleasteye.net.
Jeenah’s claims were reportedly the result of an unnamed Israeli military official telling the Associated Press (AP) that Israel assisted in facilitating the illegal transferring of Palestinians “from Gaza to the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing in southern Israel before they were taken to Ramon Airport, where they boarded a flight that took them first to Nairobi, and then Johannesburg.”
The Turkish-based Anadolu Agency reported that South African civil society groups accuse Israel of being the hidden hand behind the forced migration of Palestinians from Gaza after the recent “mysterious” flight transporting hundreds of Palestinians landed in South Africa.
The humanitarian organization Gift of the Givers Foundation said the first flight that landed in late October carried 176 Palestinians. A second chartered flight, making a layover in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, arrived with 153 Palestinian refugees, but South Africa’s Border Management Authority (BMA) initially denied them entry.
“The BMA said the Palestinians had failed immigration questions after failing to indicate their intended duration of stay in the country or provide accommodation addresses,” Anadolu reported. In addition, “They did not have the customary departure stamps in their passports, which were supposed to be granted by Israel as they exited.”
Nigel Branken, a South African clergyman and social justice activist, reportedly assisted the Palestinians while their flight waited for clearance. Branken told Anadolu, during a telephone interview, that the Palestinian passengers told him they were lured by a website advertising how to travel out of Gaza.
“In June, they were told to pay in advance for them to be evacuated from the country. People were so desperate because of the genocide, they didn’t know if it was a genuine company or not,’’ he said.
The plane was eventually allowed to disembark after intervention from a local charity. According to the BBC, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said allowing the plane to disembark was a display of “empathy (and) compassion.”
Twenty-three of the passengers had already flown elsewhere, so 130 were allowed into the country, South African authorities said, reported the BBC.
South Africa’s Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told reporters that the flights looked like it was part of a “broader agenda to remove Palestinians from Palestine into many different parts of the world.”
“[This] is a clearly orchestrated operation because they are not only being sent to South Africa. There are other countries where such flights have been sent,” Lamola said, without giving additional details. He added that the matter was being investigated.
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