Israel Secretly Airlifts 19 of Yemen’s Last Jews to Occupied Palestine

Local Editor

Some of Yemen’s last remaining Jews have arrived in occupied Palestine after a clandestine operation retrieved them from the war-torn country, an Israeli nonprofit group said Monday.

Over the last few days, 19 Yemenite Jews landed in Palestine – among them a rabbi carrying a 500-year-old Torah scroll -according to the Jewish Agency, which works closely with the Israeli entity and acts as a link to Jews around the world.

Hundreds of Jews have arrived in Palestine from Yemen in recent years, but the most recent arrivals could mark the end of this immigration. The 50 remaining Jews in Yemen want to stay in the country, the agency said.

The Jewish Agency would not disclose details of the secret mission, which it said was a “complex covert operation.” It named the mission “Miktze Teiman,” a Hebrew phrase taken from a biblical verse that roughly translates as “from the ends of Yemen.” Israeli Channel 2 TV said the U.S. State Department was involved, a report the Jewish Agency declined to comment on.

The Jews that have chosen to stay in Yemen mostly live in the capital, Sana’a, where they dwell in a closed compound next to the U.S. embassy and enjoy the protection of Yemeni authorities, the agency said.

Some 50,000 Jews have arrived to occupied Palestine from Yemen since 1949 and have grown to become an integral part of Israeli society.

Source: http://yemenwatch.net/