ICE Deported Palestinians to Israel on Private Jets While Shackled Throughout Flight: Report
Occupied Palestine (QNN)- The Trump administration has conducted two deportation flights of Palestinians from the US to Israel, using private jets owned by Dezer Development, which is a real estate company founded by dual Israeli-American citizen and Trump friend Michael Dezer, a new report has revealed.
The initial deportation flight carried eight Palestinians and departed from Arizona to land in Tel Aviv on 21 January.
A photograph published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which first reported the January flight, shows the men were met at Ben Gurion airport by a huddle of Israeli security personnel.
That day, Israeli authorities left the eight Palestinian men at a West Bank checkpoint. Disoriented and cold, they were dressed in prison-issued tracksuits and carried their few belongings in plastic bags.
Hours earlier, they had been sitting with their wrists and ankles shackled on the plush leather seats of the private jet.
The second flight took place on Monday. It was unclear exactly how many Palestinians were on board, but the luxury aircraft had 16 seats, The Guardian, in collaboration with +972 Magazine, reported last week.
Both flights were operated by Dezer Development, which is a real estate company founded by dual Israeli-American citizen Michael Dezer. Today, his son Gil Dezer runs their real estate empire in Florida, the report revealed.
When reached by The Guardian, the younger Dezer said he is never made aware of exactly who boards his jet when it's chartered by the US government through a Florida-based company called Journey Aviation - only the dates of use.
Dezer is known to be good friends with the Trump family, and made a donation of more than $1m to Trump's presidential campaign.
The flights reportedly refuelled in New Jersey, Ireland, and Bulgaria on their way to Ben Gurion Airport.
On Friday, opposition lawmakers in Dublin, Ireland, demanded answers, saying the permission to refuel in Ireland was “reprehensible”, “deeply disturbing”, and “outrageous”, The Irish Times reported.
Duncan Smith, foreign affairs spokesperson for the Labour party in Ireland, said: “It is absolutely reprehensible that any ICE deportation flights would be allowed stop and refuel in Shannon. The taoiseach and minister for transport must intervene and ensure this ends.” He added: “Ireland cannot in any way be complicit in these ICE flights.”
On board the 21 January flight was 24-year-old Palestinian Maher Awad, who was tracked down by The Guardian in the town of Rammun, in the occupied West Bank.
Awad said Israeli armed guards met him and the rest of the deportees at the airport, before dropping them off "on the side of the road" near the village of Ni’lin in the occupied West Bank.
“They dropped us off like animals on the side of the road,” Awad said. “We went to a local house, we knocked on the door, we were like: ‘Please help us out.’”
Awad's girlfriend and newborn son are in Michigan. He has been in the US since he was 15, when he arrived on a tourist visa, then stayed in the country.
But he was provided with a social security number, and he worked and paid his taxes, he said.
The investigation has established the flight was part of a secretive and politically sensitive US government operation to deport Palestinians arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Many immigrants in similar situations are now in detention centres awaiting deportation, or have already been deported. The Trump administration has aggressively cracked down on immigrants with legal paperwork who, in the past, may have overstayed their visas.
“I grew up in America,” Awad told The Guardian. “America was heaven for me.”
Another man confirmed to have been on the 21 January flight is 47-year-old Sameer Isam Aziz Zeidan. He and Awad both described having been shackled the entire flight from the US to Israel, making it difficult to even put food in their mouths on board.
"I don’t want to be here. I’m looking forward to going back as soon as possible," Awad told The Guardian.
Awad said he was forced to wear a body restraint, with his wrists handcuffed to his stomach. Both men said the restraints made it difficult to eat, requiring them to bend their heads forward to put food in their mouths.
According to Human Rights First (HRF), which tracks deportation flights, Dezer’s jet made four “removal flights” – to Kenya, Liberia, Guinea and Eswatini – starting last October, before its two recent trips to Israel.
According to ICE, chartered flight costs have ranged between nearly $7,000 and more than $26,000 per flight hour in the past. Aviation industry sources estimated the flights to and from Israel would have cost ICE between $400,000 and $500,000.
