On January 21, ICE carried out a secret operation to fly eight Palestinian men from Arizona to Israel, on a luxury jet owned by long-time Trump friend Gil Dezer.
The men arrived in Tel Aviv, hands and ankles shackled, and were dropped in the Israeli-occupied West Bank without food, water, or shelter. This operation is conducted again in the first week of February, marking at least the sixth deportation utilizing Dezer’s jet. Four previous operations sent men to other overseas countries.
We don’t know the identities of every deportee, but at least one has lived in the U.S. since he was a teenager. He’s 24 years old now and may never see his newborn son again.
Gil Dezer, a member of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (a U.S. non-profit that raises money for IDF soldiers), is so close to Trump that they attended each other’s weddings.
Around 2001, Gil and Michael, his father, began developing the Trump Grande Ocean Resort in Miami. He later told the press that Russians bought over 10% of the condos. His company owns six Trump buildings today.
In 2011, the New York Times reported that Dezer had done the unthinkable with another Trump property. After losing about two-thirds of buyers at Miami’s Trump Towers due to the 2008 crash, Dezer miraculously sold enough condos in ONE WEEK to pay off the property’s $265 million mortgage.
More recently, Dezer and his father dropped over $1 million in Trump’s presidential campaigns.
The Trump administration won’t answer how much money they’ve spent to borrow Dezer’s 16-passenger jet, but aviation industry sources told The Guardian that these flights likely cost ICE between $400,000 and $500,000.
