JOHANNESBURG: South Africa said Monday the surprise arrival of 153 Palestinians on a plane last week indicated &quot;a clear agenda to cleanse Palestinians&quot; out of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The group landed in Johannesburg on a chartered flight on Thursday without departure stamps from Israel in their passports. Reports said a shadowy organisation named Al-Majd was involved in their travel from Gaza. &quot;We are suspicious, as the South African government, about the circumstances surrounding the arrival of the plane,&quot; Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told reporters. South African border police kept the group on the plane for 12 hours before President Cyril Ramaphosa allowed them entry on a standard 90-day visa exemption. It emerged later that a first plane carrying 176 Palestinians had arrived on October 28, according to the local Gift of the Givers charity that is assisting the arrivals. &quot;We do not want any further flights to come our way because this is a clear agenda to cleanse out Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank and those areas, which South Africa is against,&quot; Lamola said. &quot;It does look like it represents a broader agenda to remove Palestinians from Palestine into many different parts of the world, and is a clearly orchestrated operation,&quot; he said. &#39;Misled&#39; South Africa, which is set to host world leaders at the G20 summit this weekend, is seen as one of the strongest supporters of the Palestinian cause. Pretoria filed a case against Israel with the International Court of Justice in 2023, accusing it of genocide in Gaza. The Gift of the Givers NGO told AFP the Palestinians it is assisting said they had paid around $2,000 per person to Al-Majd for the trip and did not know they were going to South Africa. &quot;What we&#39;ve been told is that they were promised some type of travel out of Gaza to some form of safety in a country that would welcome them,&quot; representative Sarah Oosthuizen told AFP. Some of the passengers appeared to have been misled about their final destination, with a few believing they were headed to Indonesia, Malaysia or India, she said. Travellers in the first group &quot;definitely did not know that they were coming to South Africa&quot;, Oosthuizen said. The second plane -- which carried a group including men, women and children -- flew from Israel&#39;s Ramon airport to Nairobi before boarding the chartered plane to Johannesburg, she said. The accommodation they had been promised on arrival turned out to have been booked for only up to a week and &quot;when they were settled in these accommodations, their contact with Al-Majd went silent,&quot; Oosthuizen said. Some of the group had told the NGO that they wished to apply for asylum, she said. &#39;Investigating&#39; The Palestinian embassy in South Africa said Thursday the travel of both groups &quot;was arranged by an unregistered and misleading organisation that exploited the tragic humanitarian conditions of our people in Gaza.&quot; The group had &quot;deceived families, collected money from them, and facilitated their travel in an irregular and irresponsible manner,&quot; it said. When AFP in Jerusalem tried to contact Al-Majd, none of the numbers listed on their website were in service. Their linked address only led to the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Israeli authorities told AFP at the weekend that the 153 Palestinians had been allowed to leave Gaza after receiving &quot;approval from a third country to receive them&quot;, without naming the country in question. Lamola on Monday said Pretoria was investigating the matter.

Middle East

South Africa suspects a scheme to forcibly relocate Palestinians after 153 arrived unexpectedly on a flight, possibly misled by unregistered group Al-Majd; investigations ongoing.

South Africa says 'suspicious' flights from Israel an 'agenda to cleanse Palestinians'

RAMALLAH: Israeli forces shot dead an 11-year-old boy in the occupied West Bank, his family and health officials said Friday, while the army said its troops opened fire at rock throwers.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;The Palestinian health ministry said that Mohammad Hallaq was shot dead on Thursday by Israeli soldiers &quot;in the town of Al-Rihiya, south of Hebron. The bullet penetrated his pelvis.&quot;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Hallaq&#39;s uncle, also named Mohammad Hallaq, told AFP the child was sitting in front of his house when an army patrol passed by during a confrontation with a group of older youths.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;(The soldiers) fired directly at (the older boys), and he was killed,&quot; the uncle told AFP, adding the child was sitting away from the youths.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;The Israeli military told AFP that soldiers had shot and struck people during an altercation while deployed in Al-Rihiya.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Soldiers responded with fire toward the suspects in the rock-hurling. Hits were identified,&quot; it said, using the language it generally uses to say troops shot and hit someone.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Ayed Abu Eqtaish, an official for Defence for Children International Palestine, a rights organisation, said the incident took place around 5:00 pm (1400 GMT), after which Hallaq was transported to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;The number of children and teenagers shot dead by Israeli forces in the West Bank after being suspected of throwing rocks dramatically increased in 2025.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;A Palestinian teenager who held US citizenship was shot dead by the army in April, followed by a 14-year-old in June in the town of Sinjil in June, and a 15-year-old in July.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;On each occasion, the military said the youths had thrown rocks at its troops.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;The Palestinian health ministry also reported on Thursday evening that an adult, 20-year-old Mahdi Kamil, was killed by Israeli forces in the northern West Bank town of Qabatiya.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;The Israeli military told AFP that its troops killed a Palestinian militant in Qabatiya on Thursday after he threw &quot;an explosive device&quot; towards soldiers deployed in the area.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;The soldiers responded with fire and eliminated the terrorist,&quot; it said.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 where violence has surged since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, 2023.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Since then, Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 986 Palestinians in the West Bank,&nbsp;including many militants, according to health ministry figures.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Over the same period, at least 43 Israelis, including members of security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations, according to official figures.

 Palestinians gather for Friday prayers amid the rubble of a destroyed building in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Friday, October 17, 2025. (AP)

The Palestinian health ministry said that Mohammad Hallaq was shot dead on Thursday by Israeli soldiers "in the town of Al-Rihiya, south of Hebron. The bullet penetrated his pelvis."

Family says Israeli forces kill 11-year-old Palestinian in West Bank

UNITED NATIONS:&nbsp;The United Nations insisted on Friday there was no safe place for Palestinians ordered to leave Gaza City,and that Israeli-designated zones in the southern Gaza Strip were &quot;places of death&quot;. Since launching its air assault on Gaza City in August ahead of its ground offensive there, the Israeli military has repeatedly told Palestinians to head south. &quot;The notion of a safe zone in the south is farcical,&quot; James Elder, a spokesman for the UN children&#39;s agency UNICEF, told journalists in Geneva. Speaking from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, Elder pointed to how &quot;bombs are dropped from the sky with chilling predictability; schools, which had been designated as temporary shelters are regularly reduced to rubble, (and) tents... are regularly engulfed in fire from air attacks&quot;. The Israeli military has urged Palestinians to relocate to a &quot;humanitarian area&quot; in Al-Mawasi on the coast, where it says aid, medical care and humanitarian infrastructure will be provided. Israel first declared the area a safe zone early in the two-year war but has carried out repeated strikes on it since, saying it is targeting Hamas. Nutrition, shelter, sanitation Elder insisted that &quot;the issuance of a general or a blanket evacuation order to civilians does not mean that those who remain behind lose their protection as civilians&quot;. At the same time, he warned, the &quot;so-called safe zones ... are also places of death&quot;. Al-Mawasi, he pointed out, &quot;is now one of the most densely populated places on Earth. &quot;It&#39;s grotesquely overcrowded and has been stripped of the most basic essentials of survival.&quot; The UN had begun in late 2023 &quot;debunking this concept of a unilaterally-declared safe zone&quot;, Elder said. &quot;The law is very clear,&quot; he stressed. &quot;It is the responsibility of the occupying power -- Israel -- to ensure that a safe zone has all the essentials for survival: that is nutrition, shelter and sanitation. &quot;None of those are present in a level that is fitting of a population,&quot; Elder said, adding that the UN at the start had &quot;at least assumed that these places would not be bombed&quot;. But over the past 18 months, the Israeli-designated safe-zones had been hit &quot;dozens of time&quot;, and &quot;people in tents have suffered from airstrikes&quot;. Makeshift crutches Humanitarian agencies regularly warn that the amount of urgent supplies being allowed into the Gaza Strip are grossly insufficient to meet the immense needs of the population in the Israeli-besieged Palestinian territory. &quot;To cope with that situation, our colleagues, particularly in our hospital in Rafah, have decided to build our own materials,&quot; such as &quot;home-made, wooden crutches&quot;, said Christian Cardon, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross. The ICRC announced on Wednesday that had been &quot;forced&quot; to suspend its activities in Gaza City due to Israel&#39;s intensified military operations. &quot;There are no longer any international staff in Gaza City. We had between two and five expatriates before,&quot; Cardon told AFP, adding that the ICRC has 350 staff, including 50 international staff, throughout the Gaza Strip. The World Health Organization is calling for humanitarian corridors to allow access to hospitals, its representative in the Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn, told reporters.

Palestinians, displaced from northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, take shelter, after evacuating southwards, following Israeli forces' orders to leave Gaza City, in the central Gaza Strip, October 3, 2025. (Reuters)

Asia

The UN denounced Israeli "safe zones" in southern Gaza as deadly and overcrowded, lacking essentials. Humanitarian groups face severe access restrictions amid intensified Israeli strikes and escalating civilian suffering.

UN says notion of a safe zone in southern Gaza 'farcical'

Gaitty Ara Anis

US President Donald Trump&rsquo;s newly announced 20-point plan to end Israel&rsquo;s war in Gaza and release hostages held by Hamas has sparked mixed reactions across the Middle East. It was initially widely praised but was soon followed by criticism from key regional allies. Pakistan issued a joint statement with seven other Muslim countries during the announcement of the 20-point peace plan, praising President Trump&#39;s sincere efforts to end the war. Later, Pakistan, along with Qatar, noted that changes had been made to the originally-proposed draft. The changes are being called out as benefiting Israel rather than the Palestinians and requiring the inclusion of other points that were previously discussed with the US. &lsquo;Lack of Palestinian input&rsquo;Experts on the Middle East believe there are many obstacles to implementing the plan, from the supposed disagreement within the Hamas leadership to doubts about Israel&rsquo;s intentions to carry it out. Dr Jason Campbell, an expert on defense and regional security at The Middle East Institute, called it a sign of &ldquo;general frustrations&rdquo; that seem to center on a handful of factors stipulated in the plan. &ldquo;Lack of Palestinian input in the drafting has been a justifiable criticism,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Particularly given that it was Israel&#39;s unwarranted attack on Hamas negotiators in Doha that derailed previous collaborative discussions.&rdquo; This is a view shared by Areig Elhag, Arabic Content Editor at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. She says that the plan was shaped mainly around US and Israeli priorities. &ldquo;Without solid guarantees for Palestinian sovereignty, regional actors recognized that implementation depends on reforms within the Palestinian Authority and the disarmament of Hamas&rdquo; &mdash; conditions she believes seem highly unrealistic to materialize in the near term. &lsquo;Product of extensive consultation&rsquo;Trump described his plan as the product of &ldquo;extensive consultation with friends and partners throughout the region.&rdquo;&nbsp; Under the plan, hostilities would end immediately once both parties accepted. Israeli forces would withdraw to agreed positions, and all military operations would be frozen. Within 72 hours, all hostages would be returned, and Israel would release Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences and those detained. Hamas members who agree to disarm and &ldquo;commit to peaceful co-existence&rdquo; would receive amnesty, while those wishing to leave Gaza would be granted safe passage to third countries. As proposed by President Trump in the draft, a &ldquo;Peace Board&rdquo; would take over control of the administration in Gaza, headed by President Trump himself; however, the rest of the composition remains unclear. A few names have been floated, said Dr Campbell, such as Tony Blair&rsquo;s.&nbsp; However, many consider the former British prime minister a controversial figure, often questioned for his allegedly misleading policies during the Iraq War. Blair&#39;s decision to lead the UK into the 2003 Iraq War remains one of the most controversial events of his career. Given that context, analysts believe this is also drawing criticism, particularly from Palestinians. Elhag notes that concerns in such a situation are justified. She explains that they stem from a lack of clear mechanisms for enforcing the plan, causing the 20 points to seem more like a &ldquo;political gesture than a practical roadmap.&rdquo; Accept now. Discuss details later?Dr Campbell considers it a concern that the peace draft does not specify conditions for fully removing Israeli forces from Gaza. Despite this flaw, he says, reports indicate that key mediators, including Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt, are &ldquo;recommending&rdquo; that Hamas negotiators accept the plan &ldquo;in principle&rdquo; and iron out the details during implementation. This approach aligns with the stance many Islamic countries are also adopting, as Pakistan&rsquo;s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, pointed out the absence of several critical points from the peace plan but expressed hope that they will be included in the future.Is there any alternative to this plan? There have been numerous ceasefire deals that were tabled over the past two years of Israel&rsquo;s war against Palestine, but none of those have borne any fruit. &ldquo;The reality is that there are no other alternatives currently on the table, and the continuation of the war is in no one&#39;s interest.&rdquo; Regarding whether Hamas and Israel will follow the plan, Elhag said, &ldquo;It is difficult to imagine both sides fully committing. Hamas remains divided &mdash; some leaders are pragmatic, while others are hardline. This internal split weakens the chances of success.&rdquo; On the Israeli side, the government faces significant domestic political pressure. Prime Minister Netanyahu may publicly support the plan, but he must proceed cautiously to avoid alienating his coalition partners. Over the past two years, there remain strong doubts about the seriousness of this proposal. While Dr Jason Campbell also shares this skepticism, he said that predicting anything is impossible. However, based on recent history, he believes both sides will try to follow the plan in words, if not in practice. There is sufficient ambiguity in the points to allow each side to claim they are following the agreement, even if no real progress is being made.What does this plan mean for a common Gazan? Both Elhag and Dr Campbell agree that the world is exhausted from witnessing the widespread devastation and human suffering in Gaza, and the priority is to stop it immediately. &ldquo;The reported sentiment is one of ending the incessant attacks, even if the points presented are imperfect.&rdquo; Elhag believes that &ldquo;many Gazans are likely to see it less as a genuine peace agreement and more as a managed truce, one that temporarily improves daily life but postpones core political issues such as statehood and sovereignty.&rdquo; &ldquo;Without addressing the fundamentals,&rdquo; she fears, &ldquo;the plan risks becoming just another transitional arrangement rather than a lasting solution.&rdquo;While the plan gains momentum as more Western nations acknowledge Palestine&#39;s statehood, President Trump has made it clear that he &ldquo;will be the one deciding when Hamas has run out of time.&rdquo;

The plan was initially widely praised but was soon followed by criticism from key regional allies.

Gaza peace plan faces Mideast skepticism

Reuters

RAMALLAH: US President Donald Trump&#39;s Gaza peace plan outlines a blueprint for Palestinian statehood, but in the West Bank - where this vision would be realised - the economic prospects for a viable state are being strangled. Transport corridors used by business have been fragmented by a network of Israeli settlements, employees of Palestinian institutions have not been paid as Israel blocks transfers of tax revenues, and the vital pillar of remittances from workers heading to Israel has all but dried up since the Gaza war began. &quot;We think twice before spending one shekel,&quot; Rami Harfoosh said as his 13-year-old son, who wonders if he will ever attend university, looked on. He has not been able to afford to buy a replacement for his son&#39;s hearing aid since losing the $1,700 monthly paycheck he used to receive working in Israel. Questions over viability of a Palestinian state Trump secured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu&#39;s backing on Monday for a U.S.-sponsored peace proposal to end nearly two years of war in Gaza, and there is growing international support for Palestinian statehood. But peace in Gaza is not guaranteed - there are questions over whether Hamas will accept the plan and Trump said Israel can &quot;do what you would have to do&quot; if the Palestinian militant group rejects it. A viable Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, a separate territory that is currently occupied by Israel and lies between Israel and the western bank of the River Jordan, may also not be imminent. The Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited governance of areas where most of the Palestinian population lives, considers itself the sole representative of the Palestinian people. But its credibility has been undermined by the impact of the Israeli fiscal squeeze, its own poor management of the economy, rapid Israeli settlement building on land Palestinians want for a state and a lack of political reforms. &quot;Persistent fiscal strains have drastically eroded the Palestinian Authority&rsquo;s (PA) revenue base, placing extreme constraints on the financing of basic services,&quot; said a World Bank report. &quot;If sustained, these dynamics have the potential to precipitate fiscal collapse.&quot; The PA has denied allegations of corruption and says Israel wages financial warfare to prevent the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. Israel did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Loss of confidence in Palestinian Authority Like many Palestinians, Rami Thawlatin thinks little about the notion of a Palestinian state. He made a decent living on a construction site in Israel for years but has struggled to support his family since work permits were halted after the Hamas-led attack on Israel October 7, 2023 that began the Gaza war. These days he rarely finds enough work to support his family in the West Bank, borrowing money from his father and brothers. Thawlatin says he cannot rely on the PA to fix the economy, create jobs or provide adequate health services. &quot;No one is familiar with us or assists us, not the Authority, not the labour union, and no one who is our leader,&quot; he said. The PA, which is led by President Mahmoud Abbas, has not held a parliamentary election in the West Bank since 2006 and some Palestinian officials say it is facing one of its gravest crises since it was created under interim peace deals with Israel 30 years ago. Israel withholds funds&nbsp; Under a longstanding arrangement, Israel collects taxes on goods that pass through Israel into the West Bank and makes monthly transfers to authorities in the main city of Ramallah. Since May, Israel&#39;s finance ministry has withheld around 10 billion Shekels ($2.96 billion) in the funds it collects in taxes and duties on behalf of the PA, which is now cutting salaries and is unable to pay contractors. After the Gaza war started, Israel&#39;s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, began withholding a portion of those revenues equal to the amount transferred by the PA to Gaza, where the Abbas-led administration has continued financing services, salaries and pensions despite Hamas&#39;s takeover there. Smotrich says the funds would end up in Hamas&#39; hands. Wael al-Sheikh, undersecretary of the Palestinian health ministry, said there were severe shortages of medicine, including oncology drugs and general surgery items. &quot;The situation is very critical,&quot; he said. Since October 2023, PA salary payments have been cut to about 70% of full wages, and further declined in mid-2025 following the suspension of clearance revenue transfers from Israel. In May 2025, salaries were paid at 60%. In June, payments dropped to 50%. &quot;We no longer have the ability to borrow from banks, all the internal technical solutions we have done, we have done everything in the matter of reducing expenses,&quot; said Planning and International Cooperation Minister Estephan Salameh. Young people uncertain about the future&nbsp; Israeli telecommunications companies have been moving into the territory, said Laith Daraghmeh, CEO of the Palestinian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA). In 2025, 22 communication towers will be built with Israeli government financing near Jewish settlements, Daraghmeh said. &quot;But it is a direct directive to impact the Palestinian economy by reducing the number of users of (Palestinian) networks and creating the &#39;digital divide&#39; that they are always seeking,&quot; he said. Some Palestinian areas have no telecommunications services at all, he said. Younger generations worry about their prospects in the West Bank. Lina, 22, graduated with honours in English literature and business administration from the West Bank&#39;s Birzeit University this year but could not find a paid job in Ramallah. Last year she spent five months on an education trip in Germany. &quot;There I realised they can see a future, had plans. Here it is different. I don&#39;t have a single friend who is not thinking of leaving,&quot; she said.

Workers eat during a break from expanding an Israeli bypass road connecting Israeli settlers in the West Bank with Jerusalem, near Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, September 29, 2025. (Reuters)

Trump’s Gaza peace plan proposes Palestinian statehood, but the West Bank’s economy is collapsing under Israeli restrictions and internal challenges, deepening uncertainty for Palestinians, especially youth.

Articles tagged with "Israel atrocities"

South Africa says 'suspicious' flights from Israel an 'agenda to cleanse Palestinians'

Family says Israeli forces kill 11-year-old Palestinian in West Bank

UN says notion of a safe zone in southern Gaza 'farcical'

Gaza peace plan faces Mideast skepticism

As Trump's plan talks of building a Palestinian state, West Bank's economy is collapsing