Dignitaries, including Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog (center-right) and Aliyah and Integration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata (center), welcome new Ethiopian immigrants at Ben Gurion Airport on March 11, 2021. Photo: Government Press Office/Jewish Agency.

i24 News – A total of 38,000 immigrants arrived in Israel since last year’s Independence Day, representing the highest annual number in two decades, the Jewish Agency said on Sunday.

The Jewish state celebrates its Independence Day (Yom Ha’atzmaut) starting on the evening of Wednesday, May 4 until the evening of Thursday, May 5.

A massive influx of people from Ukraine and Russia since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine over two months ago has added to the total — nearly 9,000 from Ukraine, nearly 6,000 from Russia and 400 from Belarus, according to the Aliyah and Integration Ministry.

“We have been through two intensive months of absorbing immigration. From the start of the war in Ukraine, the State of Israel has received more than 15,000 new immigrants and this is a source of great national pride,” Aliyah and Integration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata said in a statement last Monday.

Israel’s population rose by 176,000, or 1.9 percent, since last year’s Independence Day, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.

The number now stands at 9,506,000: 73.9 percent Jews, 21.1 percent Arab and 5 percent other.

Besides the 38,000 immigrants, some 191,000 babies were born and 55,000 people passed away.