Hundreds of Ethiopian Jews have been airlifted to Israel to begin new lives and escape a bitter civil war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Alternative Prime Minister Benny Gantz both greeted the 316 new arrivals at Ben Gurion Airport.

In a statement, Mr Nentanyahu later said: "My wife Sarah and I stood there with tears in our eyes at the welcoming – when we see the immigrants, our Ethiopian Jewish brothers, leave the plane... come down and touch the ground, the land of Israel. You waited so long to realise the dream and today it is being realised."

Immigration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata - herself an Ethiopian-born immigrant brought to Israel in a clandestine airlift in 1984 - went to Ethiopia to oversee last Thursday's transfer, dubbed Operation Rock of Israel.

The arrivals, from the Falash Mura community, are the first of several thousand waiting to emigrate to Israel. They are related to Ethiopian Jews brought to Israel decades ago in a series of secret operations.

In recent weeks bitter fighting between the Ethiopian government and local forces in the Tigray region threatened to spread south to Gondar city, where most of the Jews are now housed.

This led to calls from campaigners in Israel and Ethiopia for the immigration process to be sped up.

The issue had dragged on because of questions about the eligibility of many of the immigrants to move to Israel.

The Falash Mura are descendants of Jews who converted to Christianity - often under duress - in the late 19th Century.

In recent decades they have identified as Jewish again.

In 2015 the Israeli government pledged to bring the entire community to the country by 2020.