According to press reports, a group of 20 Israelis was evacuated Saturday evening from Tunisia where Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, who has ruled the country since 1987, fled for Saudi Arabia after weeks of deadly riots over unemployment, high prices and lack of freedom of expression.
This complicated mission was orchestrated by a number of Israeli authorities, including the foreign ministry. The tourists were first transferred from the touristic resort of Djerba to Germany and from there to Tel Aviv.
"It is a story that ends well, but demanded life-saving efforts by the foreign ministry and other agents,” ministry spokesman Yossi Levy was quoted as saying by the Ynet news website.
Israel and Tunisia have no diplomatic relations. In 2000, Tunisia decided to sever its relations and to close the Tunisian interest office in Tel Aviv and the Israeli Interest Office in Tunis.
At the weekly cabinet meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the unrest in Tunisia illustrates the widespread instability plaguing the region and shows why Israel must be cautious as it pursues peace with the Palestinians.
It underscores the need for strong security arrangements in any future peace deal with the Palestinians, he added.
Netanyahu said it's not enough to "close our eyes" and sign a peace agreement.
"We don't know if a peace agreement would be respected and so any peace deal would have to include on-the-ground security arrangements," he said.
Tunisia is home to the second-largest Jewish community in the Arab world. The the largest Jewish community in an Arab country is in Morocco where around d 4,000 Jews live.
According to Jason Isaacson, director of government and international affairs at the American Jewish Committee (AJC), who has been in touch with members of the community in the North African country, "until now there were no signs of rhetoric or violence of any sort or any negative acts against the Jewish community."
The Jewish population reached 100,000 in 1948 but successive waves of emigration to France and Israel, especially after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, reduced it to 1,500 today.
Most of Tunisian Jews live in the capital Tunis and on the island of Djerba.
In 2002, a bomb detonated outside Djerba’s famous El Ghriba synagogue, killing 21 people.
"Tunisian Jews have been part of Tunisian society since ancient times, and we will make sure that that tradition of intrastate harmony prevails," Isaacson said.