Hundreds of Ethiopian Jews have been airlifted to Israel – the first of several thousand waiting to emigrate there in a long-running saga.
It comes weeks after Israel announced plans to do so, after failing to implement a previous pledge to take in the community.
The immigrants are related to Ethiopian Jews brought to Israel decades ago in a series of secret operations.
But questions over their eligibility to settle there held up the process.
The issue gained greater urgency in recent weeks as fighting between the Ethiopian government and local forces in the Tigray region threatened to spread south to Gondar city, where most of the Jewish community are in transit camps.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his political rival, Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz, greeted the new arrivals at Ben Gurion Airport.
“My wife Sarah and I stood there with tears in our eyes at the welcoming,” Mr Netanyahu said in a statement, “when we see the immigrants, our Ethiopian Jewish brothers, leave the plane with baskets… come down and touch the ground, the land of Israel.
“You waited so long to realise the dream and today it is being realised.”
Immigration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata – herself an Ethiopian-born immigrant brought to Israel in a clandestine airlift in 1984 – went to Ethiopia to oversee Thursday’s transfer, dubbed Operation Rock of Israel.
BBC
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