Why South Africa is ending the 90-day visa exemption for Palestinians

On 6 December, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) announced that it was scrapping a 90-day visa exemption for Palestinian passport holders, causing outrage from activists. We unpack the saga.

What reasons did DHA give for withdrawing the Palestinian visa exemption?

During November, two mysterious charter planes carrying Palestinian passengers landed at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport. Due to the circumstances of the flights — which included that passengers seemed to have been stripped of possessions before boarding and in many cases were not aware that their final destination was South Africa — speculation immediately began to circulate that these flights, organised by a dubious company called Al-Majd Europe, could be part of an Israeli project to depopulate Gaza.

In its statement, the DHA effectively confirmed this, without giving details.

“Following investigations and recommendations by national intelligence structures and consultations conducted within the Security Cluster — which confirmed the deliberate and ongoing abuse of the 90-day visa exemption for Palestinian ordinary passport holders by Israeli actors linked to ‘voluntary emigration’ efforts for residents of the Gaza Strip — the Department of Home Affairs has withdrawn the exemption,” it stated.

“Investigations also indicated that the arrival of these charter flights were not intended to be once-off events, but that they may be part of a broader, ongoing effort to relocate Palestinians to other parts of the world.”

The statement concluded by quoting Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber as saying: “South Africa will not be complicit in any scheme to exploit or displace Palestinians from Gaza”.

In other words, DHA says it is withdrawing the visa exemption to protect Palestinians and prevent them from being “flushed out” of Gaza.

Is there any way for Palestinians to enter SA now?

In theory, yes. DHA said: “Going forward, visa applications from bona fide Palestinian travellers will be processed accordingly to enable them to visit South Africa.”

They would, in theory, simply need to apply for a visitor’s visa, like nationals of all countries that don’t have a visa-exemption protocol with South Africa.

But in reality, lawyers say, it will be extremely difficult for Palestinians to achieve this.

Immigration attorney Anke Truter told Daily Maverick: “No Palestinian will be able to board either a commercial or charter flight to South Africa without a valid visitor’s visa. And to do this, they have to present themselves at a foreign mission accredited to receive applications for South African visas.”

The applicants also have to surrender their passports to the foreign mission while the visa applications are being processed, raising further logistical difficulties.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign said this week that because individuals in Gaza have “no functional access to South African visa processes”, the effects of scrapping the visa exemption were “materially different from a state whose nationals enjoy freedom of movement and ordinary access to consular services”.

A Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) official, speaking under condition of anonymity, refuted this, however, saying that there was a “fully functional” office in Ramallah in the West Bank which could be used. In practice, however, travel between Gaza and Ramallah is almost impossible.

Is there any way for a Palestinian to claim asylum in SA in advance, while abroad?

No. You can only apply for asylum on South African soil. So anyone still hoping to claim asylum here would have to first somehow obtain a visitor’s visa. (There is one possible loophole involving Eswatini, which is discussed below.)

Before the charter flights, how many Palestinians had SA granted asylum to?

Very few. According to a presentation given to Parliament on 18 November by the Border Management Agency, 89 asylum applications were received from Palestinian nationals at Refugee Reception Offices (RROs) in 2024 and 2025.

Of these, just 29 were granted, with seven pending.

Carol Lemekwana of Lawyers for Human Rights told Daily Maverick, however, that she did not believe these figures were reflective of the true numbers of Palestinians seeking asylum.

“We know of [Palestinian] people who go to the RRO on a daily basis who are not even allowed to enter the system,” said Lemekwana.

“There are cases of people who came in last year who haven’t been processed yet.”

Truter said it was important to note that South Africa’s asylum application system was “incredibly problematic”.

“DHA is insistent that you have to claim asylum at the airport. Then you are issued an asylum transit visa valid for five days, within which time you have to make it to a Refugee Reception Office.”

South Africa only has five operational RROs. Lemekwana said the offices in Durban and Cape Town had not accepted any new refugee applications for some time.

Truter said that some Palestinian asylum seekers did not immediately announce their intention to apply for asylum at the airport, explaining that there could be several reasons for this, including that they may not be familiar with South African laws or may have wanted to take a look at the country before deciding whether they wished to stay.

Another factor is that if you arrive at the border and claim asylum, your passport is immediately confiscated — meaning that you cannot travel anywhere for as long as your application is pending, and can’t change your asylum application to an immigration visa application.

What has happened to the unsuccessful applicants is unclear.

“A cornerstone of refugee protection is that you cannot be returned to a country where you face serious harm or persecution,” Truter pointed out.

Lemekwana said that for South Africans to return Palestinians to a genocide would be a violation of this principle.

Why was South Africa seen as a possible sanctuary by Palestinians?

Precisely because there are so few countries which still allow Palestinians visa-free entry. The only other African country to do so appears to be Eswatini. Then there are a handful of South American countries — Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Suriname, Venezuela — and, in Asia, Malaysia.

Of these, South Africa and Eswatini are the shortest flights. (Lawyers point out that the one possible way Palestinians could still claim asylum in South Africa without a visitor’s visa would be to fly to Eswatini and then present themselves at a land border post with South Africa.)

Truter also says that in a number of cases she has dealt with, the Palestinians have opted to come to South Africa because of Pretoria’s stance on Israel.

Was the visa exemption scrapped because DHA was worried it would encourage charter planes of refugees from other nations to follow suit?

This was one of six questions Daily Maverick sent DHA this week, which it declined to answer.

DHA spokesperson Carli van Wyk replied: “Our response is that the Department has clearly set out its position on this matter, informed by the inter-agency work done by intelligence and security structures, in the detailed press statement that was released.”

Refugees fleeing countries like Sudan or the DRC, however, generally do not have the funds to pay for charter flights.

“It’s not something we’ve seen before,” said Truter.

She said that whenever there was a surge of conflict in Africa, there was a temporary upsurge in refugee applicants, but, if anything, they arrived in trucks.

What has been the response to the visa exemption scrapping?

Lawyers and activists have expressed significant concern.

“I can understand that South Africa does not want to be complicit in the flushing out of Palestinians from Palestinian soil. But, ultimately, the victims are going to remain the Palestinian nationals,” said Truter.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign expressed similar sentiments in a statement this week.

“The wholesale withdrawal of the exemption, purportedly in response to the arrival of the two flights of Palestinians on 28 October and 13 November, unjustifiably shifts responsibility onto Palestinians themselves for circumstances entirely beyond their control,” it said.

“Rather than holding Al-Majd Europe to account, the shady organisation with Israeli links that organised the chartered flights, and the airlines that partook in the operation, the minister’s decision penalises Palestinian nationals. The minister has not demonstrated that the department exhausted all remedies available to it to prevent similar flights from entering South Africa before resorting to this extreme measure.”

The Dirco official who spoke to Daily Maverick was, however, adamant that the visa exemption scrapping was necessary to foil Israel’s depopulation plans.

“The only way to leave Gaza is with Israel’s assistance. So, by definition, everyone coming here to claim asylum is doing so with the backing of Israel. We cannot allow Israel to dump Palestinians here,” said the official. DM