Al-Majd Europe’s involvement in sending Palestinian refugees to South Africa

IN THE latest development of Palestinians arriving in South Africa, a group called Al-Majd Europe is in the spotlight for orchestrating the two known journeys from Palestine to South African soil.

- YASMINE JACOBS

President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged the unusual nature of the arrivals, noting that "it does seem like they were being flushed out" of Gaza. Gift of the Givers founder Dr. Imtiaz Sooliman echoed this concern, describing the movement as "forced migration of people" and suggesting it represented a process of "ethnic cleansing". Sooliman alleged that a previous plane arrived with more than 170 Palestinians.

But who is Al-Majd Europe, and why are people calling it a scam or sketchy?

We do a deep dive using current investigations and our own into the site and organisation. First, we are going to look at the WHOIS/domain registration.

The site uses HTTPS (valid SSL), but the domain registration is private/hidden (registrant details protected). It' worth noting that this is typical for recently registered or privacy-protected domains, but it is a huge red flag when combined with donation collection.

Multiple automated site-trust checks list the domain as low trust/suspicious and note the owner info is hidden and the site has low traffic. According to ScamAdviser, the trust score is "rather low".