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JTA – Ben Gurion Airport briefly reopened on Friday for 302 new immigrants from Ethiopia, including a 6-year-old boy in need of emergency heart surgery.
The new arrivals were placed in a 14-day quarantine period, but the boy was rushed to a local hospital.
The Ethiopians, among some 8,000 of Jewish descent awaiting immigration to Israel, had been screened for COVID-19 in Gondar before arriving, according to a statement from the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, or ICEJ, an evangelical group that sponsored their arrival and signed. the plane that brought them.
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From Gondar, the immigrants traveled by buses for 12 hours to Addis Ababa before the four-hour flight to Israel.
“Now their dreams have come true of finally reuniting with their families in the Promised Land,” ICEJ President Jürgen Bühler said in a statement. “We also have many Christians around the world to thank for making this flight possible.”
The airport has been closed since January 26 as part of the government’s attempts to curb the spread of the coronavirus. They are scheduled to remain closed until at least February 20.
Ethiopians, known as Falash Mura, are believed to have converted to Christianity under duress while adhering to some Jewish traditions.
Israel completed the airlift of another group of Ethiopian Jews known as Beta Israel in the 1990s.
The Israeli government has allowed Falash Mura to emigrate under the Law of Return for Jews and their relatives from the country.
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