Issues

Operation Tzur Israel: 150 Ethiopian immigrants arrive in Israel

One hundred and fifty new immigrants from Ethiopia landed at Ben-Gurion Airport on Monday as part of Operation Tzur Israel, in cooperation with the Aliyah and Integration Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the Jewish Agency and the Fellowship.

Molokan (55) and Estabel (50), who landed with the special flight, waited in Gondar to immigrate to Israel for about 20 years. They stayed there with their children aged 23, 15, 11 and 4. Molokan, who was waiting to be reunited with his father and brother in Israel said before he took off on the special flight “We didn’t think we would wait that long. Our brothers made aliyah 11 years ago and we stayed in Ethiopia. We went through the whole aliyah process with them but ours just stopped.”

Molokan shared a bit about the difficult life in Gondar. “It is difficult to build a life here in Gondar. For us, we are temporary in Gondar and do not belong to it because we have been waiting to immigrate to Israel.”

Read More: The Jerusalem Post