Exclusive: Luxury aircraft owned by property tycoon close to US president’s family has twice flown Palestinian men from Arizona to Tel Aviv
A Guardian investigation has established the flight was part of a secretive and politically sensitive US government operation to deport Palestinians arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
One of those deported on the January flight was Maher Awad, a 24-year-old originally from the West Bank, who had lived in the US for nearly a decade. Speaking to the Guardian in the town of Rammun, Maher shared photos of his girlfriend and newborn son in Michigan.
Awad is one of several men onboard two recent flights who have been identified by the Guardian and the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine. “I grew up in America,” he said. “America was heaven for me.”
On Monday this week, Dezer’s 16-passenger luxury jet was used a second time to transport another group of Palestinian deportees. They landed at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport and also appear to have been taken to the West Bank.
Former US officials and immigration lawyers said the flights – and Israel’s assistance in returning Palestinians to the occupied territory – marked a shift in policy driven by the Trump administration’s aggressive mass deportation campaign.
Is anybody surprised anymore? Robert Kraft is a close friend of Trump. He owns the New England Patriots. The Patriots team charter jet randomly showed up in Guantanamo Bay last spring. No explanation.