Haaretz: Some 17 Iraqi Jews arrived in Israel

Some 17 Iraqi Jews arrived on Wednesday in Israel including three non Americans, who were permitted to get into Israel within the context of the immigration law which avails relatives of Jews to stay in Israel.

The Israeli daily Haaretz said yesterday that the Iraqi Jews did not come directly from Iraq but stopped in several stations before they arrived At Ben Gureon's airport. They are members of two full families and have relatives in Israel. The paper added they were not members of the Israeli Jews who lived in Baghdad, but in the Kurdish areas to the north of Iraq.

The paper said that the emigrants were transported to the center for hosting emigrants in Beer Sheba where they will live. Some 130,000 Jews lived in Iraq between 1949- 1952, 120,000 of them emigrated to Israel, while few emigrated in small groups throughout years.

Worthy mentioning that some 30 Iraqi Jews arrived in Israel in July but they were very old. The youngest was 70 year old.