Four hundred Ukrainian refugees arrived in Israel on Sunday in what is expected to be the start of a mass immigration of tens of thousands from the war-torn country in the next year.
Three flights — one from Ukraine, one from Poland and a third from Romania — arrived at Ben Gurion International airport. Among the immgrants were 100 orphans.
Some 2,034 Ukrainian nationals have now come to Israel since the war began.
The new immigrants will be granted a refugee status and given a one-time grant of about $1,800 per immigrant, $3,359 for a couple and $4,580 for a family, Israel’s Immigration and Absorption Ministry said. This is in addition to the standard stipends for immigrants which total $5,800 for an individual and $10,955 for a family for a six month period.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday said the country was preparing for a massive wave of immigration from Ukraine. Some 200,000 Ukrainians are eligible to immigrate to Israel. Of those, 43,000 identify as Jews.
Among the refugees who arrived in Israel were 100 children who were removed from custody of their parents or abandoned and lived in a foster care home. ( Debbie Hill/UPI)
Integrating the refugees “is a challenge for the State of Israel, but it is a challenge that we withstood in the past, time after time,” he said. “Moments like this, in which the world is facing an upheaval and Jews are no longer safe where they are, remind all of us how important it is that there is a home for Jews, whoever they are, and how important it is that we have the State of Israel.”
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked said last week that Israel should prepare to accept “tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of immigrants” from Ukraine, Russia and other former Soviet states.
She said that 90 percent of Ukrainians who have come to Israel since the outbreak of the war two weeks ago were not Jewish and warned of a surge that the country would not be able to handle.
“We will reach 15,000 Ukrainians in a month,” she said. “The State of Israel needs to do more in order to bring Jews and those eligible for the Law of Return. We can’t keep going at this rate, things need to be planned.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.