Canada has deported an Israeli family from Toronto back to Israel, after its request to receive asylum was rejected.

According to a report in Shalom Toronto on Thursday, the mother of the family and her two children were arrested by local authorities last week, and the father was later persuaded to join his family in a detention center, where they were held until their deportation.

The family members arrived in Canada in 2007 and applied for refugee status, claiming they had been persecuted in Israel because they were Christians.