Emergency Meeting Held as Israel Braces for Wave of Immigrants

On Thursday, government officials in Israel had an emergency meeting to prepare for a possible increase in immigration from Russia.

This was after Russian President Vladimir Putin mobile additional troops of 300,000, which saw protests break out all over the country.

Rise in immigration requests

Pnina Tamano-Shata, Israel’s Immigration and Absorption Minister, revealed that immigration requests from Russia had increased and she said that they were keeping an eye on the Jewish community there.

She said that there were a lot of challenges standing in their way when it comes to bringing the Russian immigrants to Israel safely, but they were doing their best to do so.

She said that here ministry was gearing up for a huge absorption of immigrants from the Russian Federation.

During the meeting on Thursday, senior officials of the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration and the Treasury talked about housing options, flights and budget allocation.

Tamano-Shata also connected with Avgidor Liberman, the Finance Minister, to talk about potential funding sources.

There has already been an increase in Aliyah in Israel, which is the Hebrew term used to refer to Jewish immigration.

This is largely because of Russians and Ukrainians who wanted to flee the conflict, which started on February 24^th when Russia sent its troops into Ukraine.

Putin’s announcement

On Wednesday, Putin announced the call-up, which is the largest seen in the country since World War II, and this prompted many Russians to look for options to escape the country.

Land border crossings reported long lines of people and the prices of outbound flights to nearby destinations saw a dramatic spike.

According to reports, the price of flights to Tel Aviv from Moscow saw an increase of as much as $5,000. The Kremlin said that there were ‘exaggerated’ accounts of men of military age fleeing from Russia.

The call-up also saw people take to the streets in protest, marking the biggest public demonstrations seen since February, when the war had first begun.

The actions

The Russian Interior Ministry claimed that all attempts made to organize any unauthorized gatherings had been quashed.

They also put a stop to demonstrations and the police arrested those committing ‘violations’, pending prosecution and investigation.

According to the OVD-Info monitoring group, after Putin addressed the nation, a total of 1,332 people had been detained across 38 cities in the country.

It has been seven months since Russia invaded Ukraine and the Russian troops were recently forced to face a number of humiliating setbacks.

It is because of these setbacks that Putin decided to give orders for the risky mobilization in order to boost its efforts.

However, this decision of the Russian president has only increased tensions with the Western backers of Ukraine.

They claim that this move by Putin is nothing but a sign of desperation and weakness.