While in Italy we are struggling to save a handful, to bring the gazawi out of a hell that offers no alternatives – because no one believes there is a future anymore, even if we started rebuilding tomorrow it would take years – alongside legitimate humanitarian channels, increasingly larger gray areas are emerging. Among these, the name that recurs most insistently is that of Al-Majd Europe, a foundation registered in Germany that in recent months has become the protagonist of an evacuation operation as vast as it is controversial. Michele Giorgio wrote about it on these pages on Sunday.
The official presentation of the organizationis impeccable: well-maintained website, compassionate language, supportive narrative. It describes itself as a German NGO founded in 2010, active in the protection of civilians in war zones. Yet, when African and Arab journalists began to verify its real existence, the image started to crack. The address listed as the European headquarters does not appear to host any operational office, I tried myself – the institutional email does not work, I even attempted to make a donation and the link does not really work – and the photographs of the alleged leaders published on the site have been identified as images generated by artificial intelligence. No trace of verifiable previous projects, no public documents on activities carried out over the years.
In the Arab media, questions are multiplying. Outlets such asAl-Quds al-Arabi, FelesteenandErem Newsthey describe the foundation as an opaque entity, difficult to trace, with requests for extremely sensitive personal data directed at the civilians of Gaza: complete family certificates, contact details of relatives abroad, financial documents, and, according to some testimonies collected in Rafah, even information about contacts with European NGOs and Palestinian authorities. A man from Khan Yunis recounted: "They asked us everything, even if we had relatives in Turkey or Malaysia. It felt more like an interrogation than an offer of help." Analysts cited by the same outlets see this collection of information and the lack of transparency as a possible involvement in broader political operations, consistent with a history in which pseudo-humanitarian organizations have been used to facilitate population transfers.
A girl with a scholarship in Italy, fearing she would not be able to reach Europe after many delays, thought about leaving with them. But after the first contacts, she confessed to me that she got scared: the style was different from that of the associations and universities supporting her in Italy, something in the tone and the requests alarmed her.
Initially, the evacuations were presented as free. Then the situation changed. Testimonies collected byAl Jazeera, Associated PressSouth African media report figures between $1,500 and $5,000 per person. A young mother from Deir al-Balah, evacuated with two children, recounted: "We were told that without paying $3,500 we would never get out. I sold my mother's gold and asked my brother in Dubai for a loan." Another passenger, who arrived in South Africa, said he was urged to pay "in cash, immediately, while gunfire was still happening in the skies over Gaza and moving was extremely risky." This method hardly fits the practices of a charitable organization, where safety comes first.
The reconstruction of the routes confirms even darker elements. All testimonies converge on a path that starts from Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, continues under Israeli control to Ramon Airport, south of Eilat, and then moves towards Africa. No passage through Jordan, where evacuations are strictly monitored. Flights take off from an airport controlled by the Israeli army, without clear documentation, then land in Nairobi, Kenya, and finally continue to South Africa. Many passengers stated that they were not informed of the destination: they found out once they disembarked from the aircraft.
Among the revelations that have emerged in recent weeks, some testimonies also indicate routes to Southeast Asia. A man interviewed byAl Jazeera, later cited by Iranian media, stated that «a first group reached Indonesia in June», also through Al-Majd Europe, passing through Ramon with a stop in a European country. A Palestinian source reported a route with the first flight to Budapest, on a Romanian charter, and from there final destinations such as Malaysia and Indonesia. A South African activist, after reviewing some boarding passes, claimed that among the indicated destinations were also India, Malaysia, and Indonesia. However, none of this has been officially confirmed by Jakarta, which has an independent humanitarian reception program.
The case exploded upon arrival in South Africa when a charter plane from Kenya landed at O.R. Tambo Airport in Johannesburg with 153 Palestinian citizens on board. South African authorities immediately noted the lack of valid documents, the absence of exit stamps, incomplete certifications, and irregular procedures. Passengers were held on the tarmac for hours, and the government issued an official statement explaining the need for an investigation. President Cyril Ramaphosa publicly spoke of a «mysterious», «uncoordinated» arrival facilitated by external actors, stating that those people had been «pushed out» of Gaza under unclear circumstances. Some of the passengers were welcomed for humanitarian reasons, while others departed for Canada, Australia, and Malaysia.
The Palestinian ambassador in South Africa on the charter that arrived in Johannesburg with 153 Palestinians on board.
The central question that has emerged in both Arab and African media, as well as international media, is simple and disturbing: who really benefits from this operation? Why build a parallel, costly evacuation system that lacks international monitoring, with flights passing through military airports and arriving in countries unaware of the operation? Why move civilians away from the Strip without official coordination with the UN, UNRWA, or other recognized actors?
Many analysts fear that these practices may fit into a broader strategy of demographic emptying of the Strip, a dynamic that has been discussed for decades. There is no definitive evidence, but the sum of clues, testimonies, and irregularities fuels suspicion.
The legal issue remains. Humanitarian corridors are necessary and must be guaranteed in every conflict, but they cannot become tools of demographic engineering or shortcuts to resolve through exodus what one does not want to address through diplomacy. The priority cannot be reduced to saving a few hundred people while the Palestinian national issue is relegated to the background. Without a clear political objective – the state, rights, international protection – every evacuation risks turning into a collective renunciation.
Saving lives is sacred, but if this process occurs without guarantees and without transparency, there is a risk of leaving the most vulnerable even more alone. Solidarity cannot be naive: it must be clear-headed, informed, and vigilant. It must avoid being instrumentalized and continue to see Palestine not as a problem to be evacuated, but as a people to be recognized.
New elements are emerging thanks to the account of a small group of families who left Gaza in the previous months and had been lost track of. A woman originally from Rafah, now a refugee in Surabaya, reported to local mediators that her journey had been organized "by a German group" and that the transfer had started from Kerem Shalom. According to her testimony, collected by Indonesian activists, the group had been boarded on a European flight that was supposed to take them to Malaysia, but some of the passengers continued on to Indonesia thanks to a tourist visa obtained before the war. The woman recounted spending two days not knowing which country they were headed to, not receiving clear documentation, and only learning of the final destination upon arrival.
A young man from Jabalia, now in Medan, also spoke of a network of intermediaries connected to Al-Majd Europe. He reported being contacted via an unregistered Palestinian number and invited to show up at a gathering point near Khan Yunis. "They told us we would be going to Egypt. Then they took us to the Negev, then to Ramon. Only in Budapest did we realize that some of us would be sent to Indonesia," he recounted. He added that at the time of boarding the first flight, he was assured that "everything was coordinated with international organizations," but once he arrived in Asia, he discovered that no one was waiting for him and that the local authorities had not received any notification.
Indonesian authorities have not issued official statements regarding arrivals coordinated by Al-Majd Europe, but diplomatic circles in Jakarta admit the possibility that small groups have entered the country through irregular routes, during a period when Indonesia had expressed support for the population of Gaza on several occasions. An official involved in the Indonesian government's humanitarian program explained that, during the same months, Jakarta was organizing corridors dedicated to the injured and orphans, but that "some arrivals were not part of the official records." He confirmed that in at least two cases, Palestinian families presented themselves spontaneously at consular offices without any verifiable travel documents.
According to an Arab diplomatic source based in Kuala Lumpur, some of the passengers originally headed for Malaysia
were transferred to Indonesia through private channels. This would explain the confusion regarding the final destinations and the difficulty for the media in reconstructing a unified picture of the movements.
All of this reinforces the suspicion that Al-Majd Europe has built a network of parallel evacuations that not only bypasses official humanitarian corridors but also creates a geographical dispersion of Palestinians, making coordinated monitoring impossible and opening spaces for potential abuses. The role of the European intermediaries involved in the stops, the nature of the contracts made with charter companies, and the reason why some destinations are never communicated to passengers still need to be clarified.
As new elements emerge, one thing becomes clear: these evacuations are not simple humanitarian operations, nor do they follow the logic of protected corridors. They are the result of a system that has not insisted, according to humanitarian law, on opening legitimate and fully monitored corridors for this conflict, under international control. Every exit, including that of citizens traveling from Gaza to Italy, is presented by our government as an exception, a concession, an act of kindness rather than as the exercise of a sacred right: to survive a massacre. In this way, we have allowed untracked movements, lacking institutional coordination, in which civilians become passengers of a mechanism that escapes public control. A system that, behind the promise of salvation, risks generating a new form of invisible displacement, an undeclared diaspora moving along routes outside of any international guarantee.
In recent days, there have also been increasing questions about the possible funding of Al-Majd Europe's operations. A preliminary reconstruction by Arab and African media suggests that the association has had access to hard-to-trace funds: private donations from Gulf countries, transfers through unregulated payment platforms, and, according to a Palestinian source with direct knowledge of the NGO sector, possible contributions from European intermediaries operating semi-clandestinely in the field of humanitarian logistics. A former relief coordinator in Gaza described the network as "a constellation of micro-funders: small fundraising efforts, parallel channels, front foundations that move relatively modest sums but are sufficient to launch a charter." A second source, based in Istanbul, added that some funders are "convinced they are supporting rescue operations," without being aware of the complete lack of traceability.
At the same time, the picture of recruiters and intermediaries is taking shape. Numerous Gazans have reported being contacted through unknown numbers, often registered abroad or associated with temporary SIM cards. In more than one case, the calls came from European prefixes, including Germany and the Netherlands, but also from Palestinian numbers that could not be traced back to official operators. A man from Rafah explained that the intermediary "spoke a non-local Arabic" and claimed to work for a European NGO authorized to operate in the Strip. According to other testimonies, the intermediaries changed their number after each stage of the journey, making any form of verification impossible. Some passengers reported being added to WhatsApp groups that disappeared within a few hours after boarding the first bus heading to Kerem Shalom. A young woman from Gaza City recounted receiving instructions "only through voice messages," in which she was told to show up at a gathering point "within two hours" without further explanations.
Similar doubts arise in the management of European flights used as stopovers. Testimonies speak of an initial charter flight, often operated by Eastern European companies, with destinations such as Budapest or Bucharest. From there, passengers were redistributed to Africa or Asia. Some travel documents reviewed by South African activists show boarding passes issued by Fly Lili and other small charter companies, with routes that do not appear in commercial flight records. A passenger heading to Indonesia reported being stuck for seven hours at Budapest airport "in an isolated room," with no one explaining what the next flight would be. Another, who ended up in South Africa, said he discovered at that moment that his ticket listed a completely different destination than promised. A European diplomatic source admitted that "unrecorded movements occurred in standard commercial traffic," without specifying the nature or origin of the passengers.
New details are also emerging about the boarding procedures at Ramon airport and the role of Israeli airport operators. Numerous testimonies describe a rigidly controlled system, but structured to leave no documentary traces. According to evacuated passengers, arrival at the airport did not occur through the terminals designated for international flights, but rather through secondary entrances usually used for staff or military flights. In more than one account, there are mentions of buses escorted by military vehicles, with passengers registered not through passports, but through nominal lists handed directly to airport staff.
A maintenance technician who has worked for years at the Eilat hub reported, under anonymity, that during the weeks when these evacuations took place, remote parking spaces were used, far from the gates visible to commercial passengers. According to his testimony, the charters landed and took off during time slots that were not compatible with regular civilian traffic, indicating that the operations were deliberately scheduled within the airport's technical windows, when it is not necessary to record transit in public systems. He also reported that some movements did not appear on the internal boards, a common practice in military operations or those covered by confidentiality.
A young mother evacuated to South Africa recounted that at the time of boarding, they were not asked for any documents, and that the name verification was done by comparing printed and handwritten lists. "They did not allow us to speak to anyone. They just told us to stay in line, follow the instructions, and not to take photographs or videos."
A source with knowledge of Israeli airport practices confirmed that Ramon is often used for operations that require a high degree of control and a low level of visibility, due to its remote location in the desert and the reduced presence of commercial flights. The source added that personnel may be authorized to operate without leaving digital records, a typical circumstance in security operations. This would explain why some charters associated with Al-Majd Europe do not appear in international flight databases or are registered with partial identification numbers.
Another area of investigation concerns the Israeli geopolitical interests behind the use of Ramon Airport as a hub for unregistered flows of civilians leaving Gaza. According to several analysts in the region, the use of Ramon is not just a logistical choice, but a political tool: it allows Israel to control every phase of the transfer, to avoid international oversight that would occur in a corridor mediated by organizations like the UN or UNRWA, and to move Gazans away from sensitive points like the Egyptian or Jordanian crossings, where the diplomatic weight of Arab countries tends to impose stricter conditions.
A Middle Eastern source close to diplomatic circles in Amman claims that the use of Ramon responds to a broader strategy: to prevent evacuations from occurring through Jordan, where every passage would be immediately recorded and subjected to multilateral checks. "If they passed through Amman, the international community would see numbers, lists, destinations. They would have transparency. Ramon is designed to ensure opacity," the source explained. According to the same account, Jordan has repeatedly expressed concern over transfers of Palestinians occurring without coordination, considering them potentially part of a demographic pressure that risks involving the entire region.
Gaza City, among the ruins of the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood (photo Jehad Alshrafi/Ap)
Unfortunately, however, from direct experience I know how many obstacles Jordan has placed – and continues to place – on evacuations from Gaza. Italian diplomats report blockages concerning women with children, students, and sick individuals. The official reason is to avoid a massive exodus from the Strip, so as not to contribute to the emptying of the territory. But the concrete result is the opposite: instead of ensuring safe and monitored exit routes, people are pushed towards alternative channels that completely evade the controls and protections of the international community.
A European official involved in an observation mission in the occupied territories added that for years there has been discussion in Israel about the possibility of "lightening" the population density in Gaza by encouraging migration to third countries through unofficial programs. "There is no document that openly admits this, but it has been discussed in think tanks close to the institutions for over a decade," he stated. According to this source, the use of Ramon in an untraceable operation aligns with that type of vision: a process that does not appear as forced deportation, but which pushes desperate people to leave without leaving a trace of the volume of movements.
An Arab diplomat based in Cairo, informed by colleagues from the Gulf, explained that some Middle Eastern countries have been informally contacted to accept "small numbers" of Gazans fleeing, but most would have refused precisely to avoid legitimizing a possible plan to empty the Strip. "They understood that if they opened the doors, the flow would become a river. And that river would never stop," the diplomat said.
Even within Israel, the evacuations through Ramon have sparked mixed reactions among security apparatus, government, and civil society. Some independent media have raised questions about the nature of the operations. A former official from the Ministry of Public Security, interviewed anonymously, stated that "Ramon has been used as an operational laboratory, a gray area where forms of population management are experimented outside of official protocols." According to the source, the critical element was not the evacuation itself, but the fact that it was conducted "in partnership with foreign non-governmental actors whose internal structure is not even known."
Human rights organizations have expressed concern over the complete absence of monitoring of passengers, emphasizing that a transparent evacuation would have required the presence of international observers. Nationalist groups, on the other hand, welcomed the reduction of the Palestinian presence as an "inevitable and favorable" effect of the conflict.
In the silence of the dark corridors leading from Kerem Shalom to Ramon, in the hidden routes of Europe, in the unknown paths leading to Africa and Asia, a profound transformation of the Palestinian human fabric is taking place. A transformation that raises the most difficult question: how much of this movement is truly a choice, and how much is the result of an invisible pressure that pushes Gazans away from their land, on a one-way journey that no one has the courage to name.
Our countries are also responsible for all this, as they do not demand the immediate sending of international observers to Gaza, nor do they push decisively for the recognition of the Palestinian state, nor do they guarantee evacuations through humanitarian corridors monitored by independent bodies. We continue to offer the Palestinians unacceptable compromises and, in doing so, we make ourselves co-responsible for yet another tragedy inflicted on a people. We delude ourselves into absolving our conscience by staging façade solutions, saving and welcoming a few individuals – beneficiaries of a right that should never be exceptional: the right to live.