Ethiopia's last Jews still waiting for a visa to Israel

Ethiopia is home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, a group whose origins are, according to tradition, traced back to the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon around 950 BC.

Known as Beta Israel, the community endured persecution under Ethiopia's Communist regime, which held power from the 1970s through the early 1990s. During that period, members of the community faced discrimination and hardship tied to their religious and ethnic identity.

Dramatic airlifts

In response to the community's plight, Israel carried out two major evacuation operations, known as Operation Solomon and Operation Moses, which together brought more than 20,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in dramatic airlifts during the 1980s and 1990s.

Despite the scale of those operations, a few thousand members of the Beta Israel community were left behind in Ethiopia, and many of them continue to hope for the chance to emigrate and reunite with relatives who already made the journey.

For those still in Ethiopia, the path to emigration remains uncertain, tied to complex eligibility criteria and bureaucratic processes governing who qualifies for immigration to Israel under the country's relevant laws and programmes.

The community's situation continues to draw attention from advocacy groups and relatives abroad, who have pressed for clarity on the status of remaining members and for programmes that would allow qualifying individuals to complete the emigration process.

The exact timeline for any further evacuations or visa approvals for the remaining members of the community has not been specified, leaving many families in a prolonged state of uncertainty about when, or whether, they might be reunited.