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On Thursday morning, a chartered plane carrying 153 Palestinians from war-torn Gaza – many without the required travel documents – landed at an airport near Johannesburg, leaving South African officials “blindsided”.

After nearly 12 hours of scrambling, the group was allowed to disembark into the care of a local charity organisation.

More details have emerged about the scheme run by “Al-Majd Europe”, through which activists argue Israel is advancing its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.

The Palestinian passengers were charged a hefty sum of money by the organisation, which says on its website that it coordinates “evacuations from conflict zones”.

Here is everything we know about the group’s transit so far and who’s behind Al-Majd Europe.

The plane full of people sat on a runway for nearly 12 hours while South African authorities tried to figure out why they did not have exit stamps or slips from when they left Gaza, according to officials from South Africa’s border agency.

They were also not sure when asked by immigration where they would stay or how long they planned to be in South Africa.

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Ukraine and Greece signed an agreement in Athens on Sunday for the provision of US-supplied liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Kyiv throughout the winter months.

Greece’s national gas company DEPA Commercial and its Ukrainian counterpart Naftogaz announced the deal, covering December 2025 until March 2026, following a meeting between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Athens.

The agreement “marks an essential step in strengthening regional energy cooperation and European energy security,” according to the joint statement.

The signing of the agreement, which took place in the presence of the two leaders and the new US ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, will make it possible to “support Ukraine in the midst of a difficult winter,” Mitsotakis and Zelensky said.

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The U.S. military took out another alleged drug-trafficking boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing three “narco-terrorists” as the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, and its strike group arrived in the Caribbean on Sunday. 

The vessel was struck in international waters on Saturday and was purportedly operated by a designated terrorist organization, U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) announced on Sunday. It is unclear which terrorist organization the U.S. military is referring to.

The attack was conducted by Joint Task Force Southern Spear, a counternarcotics joint task force within Southcom, which was formed in October.

“The USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group’s deployment represents a critical step in reinforcing our resolve to protect the security of the Western Hemisphere and the safety of the American Homeland,” said Adm. Alvin Holsey, Southcom’s commander. Holsey will be retiring later this year.

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“Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route and carrying narcotics,” Southcom said in a post on the social platform X, attaching a 14-second video of the strike. 

The strike was disclosed the same day as the arrival of the USS Gerald R. Ford, which has more than 4,000 sailors and carries F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets as well as long-range Tomahawk missiles, at the Caribbean Sea.

From regulating the price of chicken to levying fees on cigarettes, Hamas is seeking to widen control over Gaza as U.S. plans for its future slowly take shape, Palestinians in Gaza say, adding to rivals’ doubts over whether it will cede authority as promised.

After a ceasefire began last month, Hamas swiftly reestablished its hold over areas from which Israel withdrew, killing dozens of Palestinians it accused of collaborating with Israel, theft or other crimes. Foreign powers demand the group disarm and leave government but have yet to agree who will replace them.

Now, a dozen Palestinians say they are increasingly feeling Hamas control in other ways. Authorities monitor everything coming into areas of Gaza held by Hamas, levying fees on some privately imported goods including fuel as well as cigarettes and fining merchants seen to be overcharging for goods, according to 10 of the Gaza residents, three of them merchants with direct knowledge.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, head of the media office of the Hamas government, said accounts of Hamas taxing cigarettes and fuel were inaccurate, denying the government was raising any taxes.

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Ukraine’s army said on Saturday it struck a Russian oil refinery in the Ryazan region near Moscow, as “part of efforts to reduce the enemy’s ability to launch missile and bomb strikes”. Explosions and a large fire were observed at the site, said the military. Ryazan is located about 200km (125 miles) south-east of Moscow.

Russian officials often do not admit such attacks have succeeded, and the Ryazan governor, Pavel Malkov, adopted the standard line that Ukrainian drones were shot down but debris happened to hit the target. “Falling debris caused a fire on the premises of one enterprise,” Malkov said. A wave of 25 Ukrainian drones attacked the region, Malkov said.

Officials in southern Ukraine said four people were killed by Russian attacks on Saturday. Prosecutors in the Kherson region said “three civilians are known to have been killed” in the village of Myklitskyi and the city of Kherson. The governor of the Zaporizhzhia region, Ivan Federov, said a Russian attack killed one person.

The US will not lift sanctions on Serbian oil company NIS unless Belgrade terminates the firm’s majority Russian ownership, Serbia’s energy minister said on Saturday, warning that her country faced “difficult” decisions. Washington sanctioned Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS) as part of its crackdown on the Russian energy sector. Analysts say Serbia is on the brink of a winter energy crisis with its lone oil refinery facing a potential shutdown.

Serbia’s energy minister, Dubravka Đedović Handanović, said the US wanted a “complete change of Russian shareholders” to be negotiated by 13 February before lifting sanctions. NIS is 45% owned by Gazprom Neft, which has been targeted by US sanctions. Neft’s parent company, Gazprom, has transferred its own 11.3% stake in NIS to another Russian firm, Intelligence. The Serbian state holds nearly 30% of NIS, with the rest owned by minority shareholders. Handanović suggested the Serbian government was looking at a possible Russian takeover of NIS and would hold a special cabinet meeting about it on Sunday.

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The world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, will arrive in the northern Caribbean on Sunday as tensions with Venezuela grow, according to a U.S. military official. The carrier will join 15,000 service members, including 2,000 Marines aboard an amphibious assault ship.

The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told NPR the "table is being set" for possible military action. Administration officials are continuing to hold high-level meetings with members of Congress and foreign leaders amid ongoing military exercises.

It remains unclear, however, if President Trump will use military force against Venezuela. The U.S. has conducted 20 strikes on boats in the region so far, saying they were ferrying drugs trafficked from the country. In August, the U.S. government set a $50 million reward for the arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

But officials told NPR that the arrival of the USS Gerald Ford, which was pulled from the Mediterranean Sea, could be just another pressure tactic on Maduro, who has put his own forces on high alert.

On Friday, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, "I sort of made up my mind" about whether to launch an attack.

"I can't tell you what it is," he said, "but we made a lot of progress with Venezuela in terms of stopping drugs from pouring in."

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