Occupied Palestine (QNN)- An Israeli group, whose founder supported US President Donald Trump’s plan to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza and was founded by soldiers and former intelligence officers, was behind last year’s flights that facilitated the travel of hundreds of Palestinians from the war-torn Strip and landed in South Africa and Indonesia, an AP investigation has found.
In November 2025, there were several reports that a clandestine organization was moving Palestinians out of Gaza under the cover of “voluntary migration.”
About 380 Gazans were flown to Indonesia, Malaysia and South Africa on charter flights organized by the far-right Israeli group Ad Kan, founded by a West Bank settler activist. Haaretz first reported on several such flights departing from Ramon Airport near Eilat.
Quds News Network was also able to reach one of the Palestinians who traveled via this network to South Africa. The woman said that the group transferred Palestinians by land from Gaza to Israel’s Ramon Airport. Quds News Network found that the group’s entire online presence is suspicious.
Since May, at least three flights filled with Gaza residents who'd signed up to leave the war-torn enclave have landed in Indonesia and South Africa.
The flights were organized by a shadowy organization, described on its website as a humanitarian organization "providing aid and rescue efforts to Muslim communities in conflict and war zones," Haaretz reported, finding that behind the organization, named Al-Majd, is Tomer Janar Lind, a dual Israeli-Estonian national.
At the time, South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola called the flights a "clear agenda to cleanse the Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank."
Ad Kan, a right-wing Israeli organization founded by soldiers and former intelligence officers, worked via another company to distance links to Israel and organize the flights, according to a contract, passenger lists, text messages, financial statements and interviews with more than two dozen Israelis, Palestinians and other people involved with the trips.
In one contract obtained by AP, Ad Kan agreed to pay a company a minimum total of $750,000 for its "flight rescue service" from Israel.
Several of the passengers – who fled after more than two years of Israel’s genocide – said they didn't know who was behind the trip. But they largely didn't care, they said, as long as they could leave.
"There was famine, and we had no options. My children were almost killed," said a 37-year-old Palestinian who arrived in South Africa in November.
"Death and destruction was everywhere, all day, for two years, and nobody came to the rescue."
Ad Kan kept a distance from the flights. The transfers were organized through Al-Majd.
However, a look at the history of Ad Kan and its founder, Gilad Ach, suggests the Israeli group may have been driven, at least in part, by a different agenda.
Ach, an Israeli combat reservist, is a West Bank settler activist who was a staunch supporter of Trump's plan last year to forcibly displace 2 million Palestinians out of Gaza.
After Trump floated his paln, Ach published a report detailing how he'd implement the "voluntary exit."
The document proposed that Israel complete the Palestinian emigration process from Gaza within six to eight months and coordinate with the U.S. to enlist receiving countries. It said the migration of all Palestinians was "entirely feasible," that they wanted to leave, and that emptying the territory of its Palestinian population was an Israeli interest.
Early last year, Israel created the Voluntary Emigration Bureau, run by Israel's Defense Ministry.
After the war began in 2023, Ach founded a group called The Israeli Reservists Generation of Victory.
In a November 2024 interview with Arutz Sheva, a religious nationalistic news site aligned with the West Bank settler movement, Ach said the group's message included the "emigration of our enemies."
His group also circulated ads on buses in Israel featuring a portrait of Trump beside the Hebrew words: "Victory = Voluntary migration … This bus could be full of Gazans. Listen to Trump, let them out!"
In an interview with right-wing outlet the Jewish News Syndicate shortly after the war erupted, Ach said victory in Gaza meant taking part of the land and opening the borders so people could leave.
"They lost their territory, they lost population, this is a clear victory," he said.
Ach declined to be interviewed for this story and said in a text message to AP that he was proud to lead organizations voicing support for the rights of Palestinians in Gaza who want to leave for safer parts of the world.
He denied South Africa's confirmations that the flights were meant to cleanse Gaza and the West Bank of Palestinians. He said they were humanitarian flights and that those who left reached out for help, with some paying part of the costs.
Ach did not respond to questions about using Al-Majd to distance links to Israel.
AP spoke to six Palestinians who left Gaza via the flights.
Some said they started hearing about a company transferring people out of Gaza in early 2025.
Some saw ads online or on social media or were sent to Al-Majd's website through friends.
With fighting raging and much of Gaza reduced to rubble, some said they didn't know where they were going. They wanted only to get away.
Months before the flight landed in Johannesburg last November, an earlier flight in May took nearly 60 Palestinians from Israel via Hungary to Indonesia and a handful of other locations. A second flight, in October, took some 170 people from Israel to South Africa via Kenya, according to people who helped organize the planes, flight-tracking information and Palestinians who used the service.
The six Palestinians who spoke to AP said they paid up to $2,000 per person through bank and cryptocurrency transfers.
They said the website indicated they'd be taken to South Africa, Indonesia, or Malaysia but did not give an option to choose. When the flight was ready, the Palestinians received messages telling them to meet at a location where they were transported by bus out of Gaza to Israel, searched and allowed to take a few belongings onto the plane.
American-Israeli businessman Moti Kahana signed a contract in August, shared with AP, to organize a flight for Ad Kan.
Kahana said he was approached to help arrange a flight for more than 300 Palestinians to Indonesia from Ramon airport, in southern Israel. The contract with Ad Kan stated that his company would provide a "flight rescue service" for a minimum payment of $750,000.
But during planning, the route was changed to South Africa, he said, and his participation with the flights ended.
After the second South Africa-bound flight landed in November, the government revoked its 90-day visa exemptions for Palestinian passport holders, citing "deliberate and ongoing abuse" by Israelis linked to emigration efforts.
Kahana said Ach told him about Ad Kan's connection to Al-Majd, describing it as run by both Arabs and Israelis in Israel but not wanting to promote its Israeli ties.
"It's the same people, the same company, different names," Kahana said. "They have a group of Arab-speaking people that answer the phone, and they don't want to show Israel involvement; they have like an Arab face to it."
Kahana said Ach's team gave him a spreadsheet listing people who paid for the flights. The document – seen by AP – includes the names of at least 13 people whose families said they registered and paid through Al-Majd and flew to South Africa.
Al-Majd's website says it was founded in 2010 in Germany and has an office in East Jerusalem, without providing an address. The company doesn't appear in online databases for registered German charities or businesses.
It's unclear if Ad Kan was working directly with Israel's government, but Palestinians need Israeli permission to leave Gaza. Muayad Saidam, a Palestinian identified on the group's website as its Gaza humanitarian project manager, told AP in a phone call to the number listed on Al-Majd's website that he didn't know of Ad Kan or Ach but acknowledged that travel arrangements for Palestinians must be made with Israeli authorities.
