AP finds an Israeli group discreetly organized the mystery flights evacuating Palestinians from Gaza

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The plane carrying about 150 Palestinians from Gaza came as a surprise to everyone on the ground when it landed in South Africa in November.

It wasn't the only one. 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.

An Israeli group whose founder adamantly supported U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to resettle Palestinians from Gaza is behind the flights, an AP investigation has found, raising further questions about the motives behind the evacuation of hundreds of people from the strip.

At the time, South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola called the flights a “clear agenda to cleanse out the Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank.”

Ad Kan, an 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.

Several of the passengers — who fled after more than two years of a devastating war that has decimated Gaza — 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 and, like the other passengers, spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing he could face punishment. “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 evacuations were organized through a company called Al-Majd, which describes itself on its website as a humanitarian organization “supporting Palestinian lives” and providing aid for Muslim communities in conflict.

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.

“Ad Kan,” Hebrew for “enough is enough,” has for years worked covertly to infiltrate groups and expose what they say are antisemitic or anti-Israel activities.

Ach, an Israeli combat reservist, is a West Bank settler activist who was a staunch supporter of Trump’s proposal last year to transfer 2 million Palestinians out of Gaza.

After Trump floated his proposal, 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.

Trump later abandoned his plan — which drew widespread international condemnation and accusations from Palestinians, rights groups and even the U.N. secretary-general that such a proposal could amount to “ethnic cleansing” — and said Palestinians could remain in Gaza.

But far-right Israeli groups, including members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, continue to support the idea of removing Gaza’s Palestinians in hopes that Israel could one day resettle the area. With the knowledge of the U.S., Israel’s government has approached several governments — Somaliland, South Sudan and Sudan — in hopes of facilitating emigration from Gaza.

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, free from Hamas. He denied South Africa’s allegation 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.

He noted “profound hypocrisy,” with countries unwilling to accept Palestinian refugees.

“Their continued presence in Gaza, under dire conditions, serves as a tool to pressure Israel internationally and allows Hamas to maintain its rule over this suffering population,” he said.

Ach did not respond to questions about using Al-Majd to distance links to Israel.

Critics say such emigration from Gaza is not voluntary after the war left much of the strip uninhabitable. Rights groups also warn that people need to be allowed to return, and Israel has a decades-long track record of making it difficult for Palestinian to return to Gaza.

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, who has experience evacuating people from conflict zones including Afghanistan, Ukraine and Syria, 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. He declined to elaborate.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and COGAT, the defense body that facilitates departures to Palestinians leaving Gaza, declined to comment on the flights. COGAT has previously said it allows departures for Palestinians from Gaza through Israel if they have visas to the destination countries.

Netanyahu's office, COGAT and Ach also wouldn't answer AP's questions about whether Palestinians who fled would be allowed to return.

Families who flew to South Africa told AP they weren’t aware that Israelis were behind the flights but that in the end, it didn’t matter.

“I agreed to the flight, and I didn’t know the destination,” said a Palestinian who used Al-Majd to send his wife and son to South Africa.

“All I cared about was getting my family out of Gaza and saving them.”

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A Palestinian woman who traveled to South Africa via a charter flight organized by an Israeli group whose founder supported U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal to resettle Palestinians from Gaza, checks her phone in her temporary flat in Johannesburg, South Africa, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

A Palestinian man who traveled to South Africa via a charter flight organized by an Israeli group whose founder supported U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal to resettle Palestinians from Gaza, shows his boarding passes in his temporary flat in Johannesburg, South Africa, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

Palestinians who traveled to South Africa via a charter flight organized by an Israeli group whose founder supported U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal to resettle Palestinians from Gaza stand in their temporary flat in Johannesburg, South Africa, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

A Palestinian man who traveled to South Africa via a charter flight organized by an Israeli group whose founder supported U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal to resettle Palestinians from Gaza sits in his temporary flat in Johannesburg, South Africa, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

Palestinians who traveled to South Africa via a charter flight organized by an Israeli group whose founder supported U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal to resettle Palestinians from Gaza stand in their temporary flat in Johannesburg, South Africa, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

CAIRO (AP) — Gulf Arab states reported new missile and drone attacks on Sunday after Iran threatened to widen its campaign and called for the evacuation of three major ports in the United Arab Emirates as the war in the Middle East, now in its third week, expands further.

Israel and the United States attacked Iran on Feb. 28, saying they were striking nuclear and military sites and encouraging the Iranian people to rise against their leaders. Iran has responded with attacks against Israel and neighboring countries in the Persian Gulf.

The war, which shows no signs of ending soon, has upended global air travel, disrupted oil exports from the region and sent fuel prices rising across the world.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he hoped allies would send warships to secure the Strait of ​Hormuz. None of the countries, which rely more heavily than the U.S. on oil and gas that passes through the strait, responded with firm commitments by Sunday though some said they were considering action.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE warned residents on Sunday that they were working to intercept incoming projectiles, a day after Iran threatened the Emirati ports, the first time it has done so against a neighboring country’s non-U.S. assets.

Iran had earlier accused the U.S. of using “ports, docks and hideouts” in the UAE to launch strikes on Kharg Island, home to the main terminal handling Iran’s oil exports, without providing evidence for the claim. The UAE and other Gulf countries that host U.S. bases have denied allowing their land or airspace to be used for military operations against Iran.

Since the start of the war, Iranian strikes have killed at least a dozen civilians in the Gulf states, most of them migrant workers. In Iran, the International Committee for the Red Cross said more than 1,300 people have been killed so far. Iran's Health Ministry says 223 women and 202 children are among those killed, according to Mizan, the judiciary's official news agency.

In Israel, 12 people have been killed by Iranian missile fire since the war started and more have been injured, including three on Sunday. At least 13 members of the U.S. military have also been killed since the war began; six of them died in a plane crash in Iraq last week.

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s humanitarian crisis deepened, with over 820 people killed there, according to the Ministry of Health, and 850,000 displaced since Iran-backed Hezbollah started hitting Israel and Israel responded with strikes and sent additional troops into southern Lebanon.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the U.S. attacked Kharg and Abu Musa islands from two locations in the UAE — Ras Al Khaimah and a place “very close to Dubai." He called the escalation dangerous and said Iran “will try to be careful not to attack any populated area” there.

U.S. Central Command said it had no response to Iran’s claim.

Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, rejected Iranian claim that the U.S. used Emirati land or air space for its attacks on Kharg Island.

Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Gulf neighbors — Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman — during the war.

It says it targets U.S. assets, even as Iranian strikes are reported at civilian sites such as airports and oil fields. Though their air defenses have intercepted most, the war has caused significant damage and rattled economies in the Gulf.

Araghchi also told the London-based Al-Araby al-Jadeed on Sunday that Iran is ready to consider any proposal that includes “a complete end” to the war and said mediation efforts were ongoing between Iran and its neighbors to de-escalate.

He gave no indication on whether progress has been made.

As global anxiety soars over oil prices and supplies, Trump said Saturday that he hopes China, France, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and others send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz “open and safe.” It was unclear if any planned to answer his appeal.

In Europe, which relies heavily on oil and gas imports from the Gulf, Britain responded by saying it was discussing with allies a “range of options” to secure shipping.

Araghchi, in a social media post, urged neighbors to “expel foreign aggressors” and described Trump’s call as “begging.”

Iran’s joint military command has reiterated its threat to attack U.S.-linked “oil, economic and energy infrastructures” in the region if the Islamic Republic’s oil infrastructure is hit.

The U.N. migration agency said Sunday that deteriorating conditions in Iranian cities were pushing many Iranians to northern provinces for safety.

The International Organization for Migration said Iranians are also fleeing to neighboring countries, including nearly 32,000 to Afghanistan and nearly 4,000 to Pakistan, even though airports and most border crossings — especially with Iraq — are closed.

After earlier wars — including in Syria and Afghanistan — sparked refugee crises that stretched resources and polarized politics in Europe, Turkey and North Africa, neighboring states worry the Iran war could again force large numbers of people from their homes.

Iran fired barrages of missiles toward Israel on Sunday, sending residents rushing to shelters as sirens sounded and several strikes hit central Israel and the Tel Aviv area.

Magen David Adom, Israel’s rescue service, released video showing a large crater in a street and shrapnel damage to an apartment building.

Strikes in the Tel Aviv region caused damage at 23 sites and sparked a small fire Sunday.

Multi-site impacts have become a hallmark of the war, as Israel’s military says Iran is firing cluster bombs that can evade some air defenses and scatter submunitions across multiple locations.

Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank, and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut and Tia Goldenberg in Washington contributed to this report.

Smoke rises from the rubble of buildings destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Sunday, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

A man photographs the rubble of buildings destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Sunday, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Israeli air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv, Israel, early Sunday, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Smoke rises from the U.S. embassy building in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, March 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ali Jabar)

Mourners react during the funeral ceremony for Gen. Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Defense Council and a senior adviser to the Supreme Leader who was killed in a strike, at the courtyard of the Imamzadeh Saleh shrine in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Two men ride their motorbike past a billboard of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei in downtown Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Fire and plumes of smoke rise from an oil facility in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, Saturday, March 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

A man chants slogan while the body of Gen. Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Defense Council and a senior adviser to the Supreme Leader who was killed in a strike, is being buried at the courtyard of the Imamzadeh Saleh shrine in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)