Israel receives 'last Ethiopians'

The Falash Mura have had trouble proving their Jewish origins

Israel says it has carried out its last major airlift of Ethiopian Jews, ending a 30-year immigration scheme that has seen some 100,000 move there.

The Jewish Agency, which manages immigration to Israel, said the 65 flown from Addis Ababa were the last eligible under a quota imposed in 2003.

But campaigners said thousands more Ethiopians of Jewish descent, known as the Falash Mura, should be admitted.

The Falash Mura were forced to convert to Christianity in the 19th Century.

Ethiopia's last remaining Jewish community, the Falash Mura trace their roots to the biblical King Solomon.

But they are not eligible to enter Israel under the Law of Return, which guarantees a place in the country for every Jew, because they have largely been unable to prove they are Jewish.

Ethiopian Jews who kept their faith throughout centuries of adversity were flown to Israel by the thousands in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The last mass immigration was in 1991, when Israel organised a dramatic airlift of 15,000 people who had fled fighting at the end of Ethiopia's civil war.

Correspondents say Ethiopian immigrants remain one of the poorest sections of Israeli society.