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French olim arrive in Samaria on Oct. 7 anniversary

"The Land of Israel is the safest place," one of the immigrants from Paris said.

Travelers walk next to pictures of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip at Ben-Gurion International Airport, Oct. 8, 2024. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.
Travelers walk next to pictures of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip at Ben-Gurion International Airport, Oct. 8, 2024. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.

Amid ongoing missile attacks, and on the anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre near Gaza, a group of French Jews immigrated to Israel on Monday as part of a project of the Samaria Regional Council.

The families, who will be making aliyah to Tal Menashe, were welcomed at Ben-Gurion International Airport by Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan and Binyamin Horgen, a French-Israeli resident of Samaria whose wife, Esther, was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in 2020, Israel Hayom reported.

“To be standing here on Oct. 7 in Israel with another immigrant family from France, who are immigrating straight to Tal Menashe in northern Samaria—this is the greatest victory of Zionism, the greatest victory of the people of Israel,” Dagan said in a statement cited by Israel Hayom.

“That hundreds and thousands more Jews may come to Israel and Samaria in your footsteps—welcome home. Am Yisrael Chai [‘The nation of Israel lives’],” he added.

Horgan said, “We are thrilled that you are joining us, specifically on Oct. 7, to continue building the country, to continue building Samaria, to help grow the community of Tal Menashe and the nation of Israel.”

Chaya Amram, a mother of five from Paris who immigrated to the Jewish state with her family, told Israel Hayom that though she was a “little afraid,” they went ahead with the move, “precisely on Oct. 7.”

Nissim Amram, her husband, said, “The Land of Israel is the safest place. It is written in the Torah about the Land of Israel: ‘It is a land which the Lord your God looks after, on which the Lord your God always keeps His eye, from year’s beginning to year’s end’ [Deuteronomy 11:12].”

As part of the aliyah project, an initiative of the council and the Lech Lecha NGO, some 120 families have already immigrated to communities in Samaria, including Brukhin, Yakir and Peduel.

Some 31,000 immigrants touched down at Ben-Gurion under the shadow of war over the past Hebrew year, according to official government figures released on Sept. 29. The wartime wave of aliyah from more than a hundred countries comes at a time of surging antisemitism around the world.

Nearly 20,000 olim arrived from Russia, and about 3,350 came from the U.S. and Canada. There were more than 1,820 from France, 980 from Ukraine, 975 from Belarus, 560 from Great Britain, more than 450 from Argentina, more than 300 from Georgia, 280 from South Africa, 250 from Brazil, 220 from Uzbekistan, 160 from Germany, 150 from Azerbaijan, 135 from Australia, 130 from Mexico, and over 100 from Kazakhstan.

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