Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber said that while Palestinian passport-holders qualified for 90-day visa-exempt access to South Africa, the lack of departure stamps, return tickets or accommodation addresses in some of the travellers’ documentation resulted in the initial refusal to let them into the country.
Once it was established that the absence of this information “did not indicate that the travellers wished to apply for asylum” and their accommodation was confirmed, they were granted entry.
“All of the travellers are in possession of valid passports and, at present, none of them have applied for asylum,” he said.
South African charity Gift of the Givers has said it will provide the group with accommodation in the country.
Civil societies in South Africa have called for investigations into the conditions the Palestinians had fled in Gaza and the exact route of the aircraft.
One of the Palestinians who spoke to local eNCA TV expressed his relief to be in South Africa, describing it as a country of “peace, laws and justice”.
“We came from Gaza where we’ve faced death on daily basis. We have survived a war of two years and we are lucky to be here,” said one man who had fled with his wife and two children.
Gift of the Givers has since called for Ramaphosa to investigate the home affairs ministry and border authority for the “humiliation they’ve caused” the Palestinians.
The organisation’s founder Dr Imtiaz Sooliman said this treatment included being forced to wait for hours on the tarmac at the airport, being denied food provided by the group and “using every excuse in the book to prevent these passengers from disembarking”.
South Africa has been highly critical of Israel’s military operation in Gaza.
The country’s sympathy for the Palestinian fight for an independent state goes back decades, particularly the early 1990s when anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela pledged support for the Palestinian cause.
Large pro-Palestinian marches have been held around South Africa since the conflict began.
Smaller pro-Israel marches and rallies have been held in the country, which hosts the largest Jewish community in sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2023, the South African government filed a case against Israel with the International Court of Justice, accusing it of genocide in Gaza. Israel has strongly rejected the South African claim, calling it “baseless”.
