On this day: Operation Moses suspended

Fear of Arab reprisal meant that the mission was put on hold, but Shimon Peres, then Israeli prime minister, said it would continue. It did; in 1991 15,000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel in Operation Solomon.

There are now 85,000 Ethiopian Jews living n Israel, but a further 7,800 from the Falash Mura community – Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity – are still awaiting Israeli citizenship.

In November, 26 years after operation Moses, Israel’s cabinet voted in favour of bringing them over.

What the JC said: As the Ethiopian arrivals disembarked, crowds of Israelis, laden with massive purchases from European shopping expeditions, were leaving their aircraft in another part of the airport, unaware of the high drama of the arrival of the newcomers who had no possessions apart from the clothes they had arrived in…A number of children had died in the camps or during the flight to Israel, and their parents brought their bodies down from the aircraft with them. Many of the newcomers, overcome with emotion at the fulfillment of their dream of arriving in Israel, went down on their knees and kissed the tarmac, like many of the Yemeni Jews who came during Operation Magic Carpet more than 30 years ago.

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