The department of home affairs has withdrawn the 90-day visa exemption for Palestinian ordinary passport holders after flagging deliberate and ongoing abuse of the exemption by Israeli actors linked to “voluntary emigration” efforts for residents of the Gaza Strip. According to the department, this follows investigations and recommendations by national intelligence structures and consultations conducted within the security cluster. Home affairs minister Dr Leon Schreiber said when the most recent charter flight carrying Palestinian passengers landed at OR Tambo International Airport, President Cyril Ramaphosa indicated that the travellers may have been flushed out of Gaza.
Schreiber said subsequent investigations have confirmed this to be the case. “Withdrawing the visa exemption is the most effective way to prevent further flights of this nature, while ensuring that bona fide travellers from Palestine are safely able to visit South Africa without being subjected to abuse. South Africa will not be complicit in any scheme to exploit or displace Palestinians from Gaza,” he said.
Short-stay visa exemptions are a commonly used instrument by countries around the world to incentivise tourism and short-term travel. Home affairs spokesperson Carli Van Wyk said investigations into the recent arrival of two charter flights transporting Palestinian passport holders revealed systematic abuse of this exemption, with travel designed not for tourism or short-stays as intended, but to relocate Palestinians from Gaza. Van Wyk said rather than using ordinary commercial flights, entire airplanes were chartered not by the travellers themselves but by intermediaries.
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She said most passengers were given one-way tickets to South Africa and prohibited from bringing luggage with them, while only being allowed to carry US dollars and essentials. “On their arrival at OR Tambo International Airport, it was further discovered that many of them lacked departure verification and accommodation in South Africa, in addition to not possessing return or onward flight tickets. Taken together, this constituted obvious abuse of the exemption by external actors for purposes other than its intended use,” Van Wyk said.
The department also said the sequence of events amounted to abuse of the passengers themselves, as those who arranged the flights were reportedly content to leave the travellers destitute on their arrival in South Africa. “Most of the travellers indicated that they did not want to claim asylum in South Africa, necessitating civil society organisations to take responsibility for their welfare.”
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