Al-Majd Europe: The secret shell company smuggling Palestinians out of Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict News
A shell organisation with apparent Israeli connections exploited Palestinians desperate to escape the war in Gaza, extracting substantial sums of money to facilitate clandestine departures from the territory—an operation that raises grave questions about whether it forms part of a covert strategy to depopulate the enclave.
In an exclusive digital investigation, Al Jazeera examined a mysterious charter flight last month that transported 153 Palestinian passengers from Gaza to South Africa. The inquiry uncovered individuals operating under the banner of Al-Majd Europe, an unregistered entity that presented itself as a humanitarian organisation while allegedly orchestrating paid evacuations under false pretences.
The group of Palestinians arrived at OR Tambo International Airport, serving Johannesburg and Pretoria, on November 13. Upon landing, they were denied immediate entry by South African border officials because their passports lacked Israeli exit stamps. Confined to the aircraft for nearly 12 hours, they were eventually permitted to disembark under exceptional circumstances.
President Cyril Ramaphosa later confirmed that his government admitted the passengers “out of compassion”, while announcing a formal investigation. South Africa, a longstanding advocate for Palestinian rights, expressed concern that the individuals appeared to have been “flushed out” of Gaza rather than relocated through transparent humanitarian channels.
Forced evacuations under a different name
Israeli officials have previously made public statements endorsing what they describe as the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza—language that critics argue masks forced displacement.
In March 2025, Israel’s security cabinet approved the creation of a controversial bureau tasked with facilitating voluntary departures from Gaza. The initiative was headed by Yaakov Blitstein, a former deputy director of Israel’s Ministry of Defence. At the time, Defence Minister Israel Katz claimed that as many as 40 percent of Gaza’s population were interested in leaving.
Just weeks earlier, Al-Majd Europe launched an online presence, unveiling a website that claimed the organisation focused on relief efforts across Muslim countries, with particular emphasis on “Gazans wishing to exit Gaza”. It asserted that it had established mobile medical clinics inside the enclave and arranged overseas travel for Palestinian doctors—claims Al Jazeera later determined to be unsubstantiated.
One passenger from the November flight, whose identity remains concealed for safety reasons, told Al Jazeera that he first encountered Al-Majd through an online link. The offer was compelling: a safe exit from Gaza and access to medical treatment. “At first, they said it was free,” he said. “Then they asked for $1,400 per person. Later, the price increased to $2,500.”
Additional testimonies collected by Al Jazeera revealed fluctuating fees ranging between $1,000 and $2,000 per person. The process came with rigid conditions. Only families were accepted, strict secrecy was imposed, and details of departure were shared just hours before flights were scheduled to leave.
Passengers reported being instructed to assemble at the Karem Abu Salem crossing—known in Israel as Kerem Shalom—in southern Gaza. Upon arrival, their belongings were confiscated. They were then placed on buses and transported to Ramon Airport near the Israeli city of Eilat, a journey that evacuees believe was coordinated by Israeli authorities.
Nigel Branken, a South African social worker who assisted the passengers upon arrival, told Al Jazeera that the operation bore unmistakable signs of Israeli involvement. “There were very clearly markers of Israel being involved in moving people out and displacing them,” he said.
Evacuees said they were kept in the dark about their destination until moments before boarding. They were escorted onto an aircraft operated by a newly established airline, FLYYO, without receiving official exit stamps in their travel documents.
Al Jazeera subsequently identified several similar flights organised by FLYYO, all departing from Israeli airports and bound for destinations including Romania, Indonesia, Kenya, and South Africa.
A humanitarian façade unravels
Closer examination of Al-Majd Europe—described on its website as a “humanitarian foundation established in 2010 in Germany” with a headquarters in Sheikh Jarrah, occupied East Jerusalem—revealed a network riddled with inconsistencies.
No organisation under that name appears in German or European corporate registries. The listed Jerusalem address does not exist in official municipal records, and the location corresponds on Google Maps to a hospital and a café.
While investigating the flights, Al Jazeera identified two individuals publicly linked to Al-Majd Europe, both Palestinians. One is Muayad Hisham Saidam, listed as the organisation’s humanitarian projects manager in Gaza.
In May 2024, Saidam’s wife created a public fundraising page seeking donations to help her family escape Gaza. A year later, Saidam posted an image of himself boarding a plane chartered by Fly Lili, a Romanian airline, announcing his departure from the enclave.
By analysing the angle of shadows, flight schedules, and aircraft positioning on the Ramon Airport runway, Al Jazeera determined that Saidam was likely aboard a May 27, 2025 flight from Israel to Budapest, carrying 57 Palestinians from Gaza.
Saidam’s identity appears genuine, and his family is believed to have relocated to Indonesia. However, the nature of his role within Al-Majd Europe remains opaque.
The second public figure associated with the organisation is identified only as Adnan—a name that yields no discernible digital footprint.
On November 13, the same day the Johannesburg-bound flight landed, a webpage listing Al-Majd Europe’s partner organisations vanished from its website. Using open-source intelligence techniques, Al Jazeera recovered the deleted page. It displayed logos of prominent institutions the group claimed to work with, including the International Red Cross.
One entity listed stood out: Talent Globus, a recruitment company founded in Estonia in 2024 with declared capital of just $350. Its website named four employees, including director Tom Lind, a businessman holding Israeli and Estonian citizenship.
Lind’s name appears across multiple companies where he is listed as founder or director, many lacking formal registration or verifiable physical addresses. Israeli newspaper Haaretz has previously identified Lind as one of the coordinators involved in flights departing Ramon Airport with Palestinian passengers.
In May 2025, Lind announced on LinkedIn that he had left Talent Globus to focus on “humanitarian efforts to support Palestinians”. He claimed to have assisted, alongside a network of partners, in evacuating a “substantial number” of people from Gaza.
Further scrutiny revealed that photographs of the other three Talent Globus employees—James Thompson, Maria Rodriguez, and David Chen—were stock images.
Like those fabricated profiles, Al-Majd Europe itself appears to be a constructed façade. A purported humanitarian organisation with no legal registration, no verified address, and no transparent governance.
Publicly, Israel has signalled a retreat from its rhetoric around encouraging “voluntary emigration”. Yet the findings of Al Jazeera’s investigation prompt unsettling questions. Is Al-Majd Europe an isolated deception, or a cog in a broader, quieter mechanism—one that removes Gaza’s population incrementally, flight by flight, beyond the scrutiny of the international community?