Just a week before Pesach, 110 new olim from Ukraine arrived at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport Tuesday morning to start their new lives in the Jewish state.

The majority of the arrivals are refugees who fled deadly clashes in eastern Ukraine between government forces and pro-Russian separatists. Among them is the husband of the late Irina Shelkayeba, who was killed at the beginning of February when a rocket fired by rebels scored a direct hit on her house in Donetsk as she stood cooking in the kitchen

Irina’s husband, along with the rest of the family members who made aliyah with him, were met at the airport by Liora Nissim, Irina’s niece.

“I made Aliya myself 17 years ago as part of the Na’ale program, while my family remained in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine,” recounted Liora, who played a key role in encouraging and assisting the family’s move to Israel.

“They lived next to the airport, an area in which the difficult battles were waging. This was continued on and on and they waited all this time for it to finally end. It is hard to leave home, especially when war is raging outside.

“Then the rocket fell and killed my aunt. The house was ruined. They remained with no property”.

“I started aiding them from Israel. I heard the IFCJ (International Fellowship of Jews and Christians) is organizing refugee flights and I immediately called. Their representative contacted my broken family that fled under heavy shelling to the city of Dnieper and a month and a half afterwards they were on their way to Israel”.

Tuesday’s specially-chartered flight was the third one sponsored by the IFJC since December, which so far has managed to rescue some 560 Ukrainian Jewish refugees stranded after the fighting left them homeless.

Since many of the newcomers have been left both traumatized and impoverished as a result of the ongoing conflict, they will also be receiving extra financial aid from the IFJC, in an addition to the regular absorption pack and benefits olim receive from the Israeli Ministry of Immigrant Absorption.

“Every generation has its own miracle of Exodus,” IFJC’s president Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein said, hailing the latest flight.

“After years of involvement in the bringing of the newcomers from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, the IFJC is excited to be… central… in the enterprise of rescuing the Jews of Ukraine.

“IFJC wishes a happy Redemption Holiday to all the Olim and promises to stand by them till they are fully absorbed in Israel”.