The government has approved funding that will enable some 124 students to begin studies at the Tzfat Medical School this fall.

The institution is affiliated with Bar Ilan University and will offer a four year course. Plans for the facility had been on the table for years.

Studies will include special programs in clinical departments at hospitals in the north of the country, including Tzfat, Nahariya, Nazareth and Tiberias.

At least 70 of the students are Israelis who have been studying at universities abroad and who have returned to Israel in order to complete the practicum stage of their medical education. The state has promised that students learning abroad will be integrated into the Israeli medical system and will increase the number of doctors in the periphery.

Staff members have been recruited from leading universities, also abroad, some of whom are immigrating to Israel with their families, according to a cabinet communique. Others are Israelis who are returning to the country to live in the Galilee.

“This decision is in keeping with Prime Minister Netanyahu's policy of reducing gaps between the periphery and the center of the country,” the PMO statement said.