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Nineteen of the last remaining Jews in Yemen have been airlifted to Israel in a secret operation to rescue members of a community dating back two millennia from a brutal civil war, the Guardian informs.

The report says most Yemeni Jews, who numbered about 50,000 in the middle of the last century, have been brought to Israel over almost seven decades of secret airlifts.

However, 50 Jews have chosen to stay in Yemen, most of them in a compound near the US embassy in the capital, Sana’a. The city fell under the control of the rebel Houthi movement – which operates under the slogan “Death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam” – in 2014, according to the source.

Seventeen of the evacuees arrived in Israel on Sunday; two others were airlifted a few days earlier.

“This is a moment of utmost significance for the state of Israel and Jewish immigration,” Natan Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, said, as quoted by the paper. He declared the “historic mission” to bring Yemeni Jews to Israel to be over.

The Guardian reminds that Jews have been present in the region since the first century BC, living alongside Muslim neighbours. The bulk of Yemeni Jews were brought to Israel in 1949 and 1950 in Operation Magic Carpet.

Israel has run covert operations to bring Jews to the state since its inception in 1948. Jewish communities in Syria, Iraq and Ethiopia have largely been relocated to Israel.