Earlier this week, a flight carrying 153 Palestinians from Gaza landed in South Africa without documentation. The passengers were trapped on the plane for 12 hours before they were allowed to disembark on humanitarian grounds after South African authorities claimed that they had not been informed by the Israelis about the deportation flight.
The Palestinians on board had paid a company called Al-Majd Europe between $1,500 and $5,000 to leave Gaza. The operation is run by some Palestinians on the ground in coordination with Israeli occupation authorities. At least two other such flights have already been conducted since June this year.
It is the latest plan Israel is implementing to evacuate Gaza – a long-term goal of its apartheid regime that goes back to the early 20th century.
Since the beginning of the Zionist movement, Palestinians have been viewed as a demographic obstacle to the establishment of a Jewish state. In the late 19th century, Theodor Herzl, one of the founders of Zionism, wrote that the displacement of Arabs from Palestine should be part of the Zionist plan, suggesting that poor populations could be moved across borders and denied employment opportunities in a quiet and discreet manner.
In 1938, David Ben-Gurion, a prominent Zionist leader who later became Israel’s first Prime Minister, clarified that he supported forced “transfer” and saw nothing “immoral” in it. Part of this vision was accomplished 10 years later during the Nakba of 1948, when more than 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes in what Israeli historian Benny Morris called “essential” ethnic cleansing.
After 1948, Israel continued efforts to displace the Palestinians. In the 1950s, thousands of Palestinians and Palestinian Bedouins were forcibly relocated from the Naqab (Negev) desert to the Sinai Peninsula or Gaza, which was then under Egyptian administration.
After the June 1967 war, when Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it adopted a strategy of “voluntary migration”. The idea was to create harsh living conditions to pressure residents to leave, including demolishing homes and reducing employment opportunities.
In parallel, “emigration offices” were set up in Gaza’s refugee camps to encourage those who had lost any hope of returning to their homes to leave in exchange for money and travel arrangements. Israel also encouraged Palestinians to work abroad, especially in the Gulf. The price the Palestinians had to pay for leaving was that they were never allowed to return.
After October 7, 2023, Israel gets another chance to carry out its plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza – this time through genocide and forced expulsions. He thought he had the necessary international sympathy and diplomatic capital to carry out such an atrocity, as evidenced by statements from various Israeli officials such as Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. They also came up with the so-called “General’s Plan” to completely evacuate northern Gaza.
The new plan to expel the Palestinians from Gaza fits well into this historical pattern. However, what makes it different is that Palestinians have to pay for their forced displacement and their desperation is exploited by Palestinian allies who want to make easy profits. Undoubtedly, its purpose is to increase the financial deprivation of the Palestinian population and create more internal rifts and tensions.
Like previous plans, this plan also has a central feature of refusing to allow Palestinians to return. None of the passengers on board the plane had Israeli exit stamps on their passports, which was why South African authorities had difficulty with the entry process. Having no legal record of leaving the Israeli-occupied territory of Gaza means these people are automatically classified as illegal immigrants and have no possibility of returning.
It is important to clarify here why Israel is allowing these flights to take place while hindering the evacuation of sick and injured Palestinians and students accepted at foreign universities. These evacuations of patients and students would be legal, and they represent a right to return – something Israel does not want to allow.
It is not surprising that some Palestinians are willing to fall for this flight plan. Two years of genocide have driven the people of Gaza to unimaginable despair. There are many Gazans who would willingly board those planes. And yet, Israel cannot take us all to South Africa.
During decades of Zionist occupation, Palestinians have persevered. Palestinian perseverance in the face of wars, sieges, home raids, demolitions, land theft and economic subjugation confirms that Palestinian land is not just a place to live, but a symbol of identity and history that people do not want to give up.
Over the past two years, Israel has destroyed the lives and homes of two million Palestinians. And even that has failed in killing the Palestinian spirit and occupying the Palestinian land. The Palestinians are not pulling out; We are here to stay.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Al Jazeera.