Jooish News

JBN reported yesterday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called President Donald Trump to congratulate him on the daring rescue mission that saw the heart-stopping but successful extraction of two members of the United States Air Force who were stranded in Iran after their aircraft was shot down.

It turns out there was more to the call — because that was just the ostensible reason for Netanyahu to pick up the phone. Netanyahu’s actual aim at the time was to express concern regarding Trump’s push for a ceasefire deal, warning him of significant risks should the U.S. pull out now.

Trump reassured Netanyahu that he would not back down on his demands, including his requirement that Iran turn over its entire stockpile of enriched uranium and agree to stop enriching uranium altogether. He said that a ceasefire would only be possible if Iran agreed to all of the points in his proposal.

Officials familiar with the discussions said that Trump wants a deal but added that Iran’s defiance makes a successful negotiation improbable.

Despite an ongoing state of emergency and the pressures of war, Kyiv’s Jewish community held a series of Pesach sedarim across the city, reaching Jewish residents, soldiers, and prisoners in what community leaders described as an effort to ensure no Jew marked the Yom Tov alone.

The events were organized by Chief Rabbi of Kyiv Rabbi Yonatan Markovitch and his son Rabbi Ariel Markovitch, under the auspices of Chabad of Kyiv.

Central Seders were held at the Jewish Community Center Beit Menachem and at the Or Avner Perlina school, drawing hundreds of participants.

A separate Seder was held for Jewish detainees at the Lukyanivka detention facility in Kyiv. In addition, matzah and Pesach kits were distributed to Jewish prisoners in correctional facilities throughout Ukraine. Hundreds of food packages and matzah were also delivered to Jewish residents across the city, with assistance from the JRNU organization.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, himself Jewish, received matzah from Rabbi Markovitch ahead of Pesach and conveyed a personal greeting to the community through him.

Senior officials from the Office of the President attended the JCC Beit Menachem events, including Chief of Staff Kyrylo Budanov and his deputy Iryna Mudra, who is herself a member of Kyiv’s Jewish community.

Jewish soldiers on active duty were granted short leave to attend the Seder — joining the community for the first time since the war began.

“This year, more than ever, we understood how important it is to reach every Jew, no matter where they are,” Rabbi Markovitch said. “Pesach is a holiday of freedom, but also of unity and responsibility for every Jew. Seeing the community come together — people arriving, singing together, and strengthening one another — gives us the strength to continue, despite the difficult circumstances.”

Ukraine’s Jewish community, historically one of the largest in Europe, has faced significant disruption since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, with many Ukrainian Jews having fled the country. Those who remain have continued to maintain communal life under wartime conditions.

Photo Credits: JCC Kiev

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, slammed what he called a “fawning celebrity profile” of notorious antisemite Francesca Albanese, the U.N. rapporteur on the “occupied territories.”

Francesca Albanese has been sanctioned by the United States because of her relentless campaign to press for legal action against Israel and anyone associated with it. She has been fiercely criticized by several European countries, including France, which demanded that she be stripped of her role at the U.N. following her remarks in Doha last year calling Israel the “common enemy of humanity.”

Waltz criticized the one-sided portrayal of Albanese in Politico Europe.

This fawning celebrity profile of antisemitic bomb-thrower Francesca Albanese manages to ignore all the ways she's sabotaging the UN's mission of peace, from trying to debank Americans to eliminating their jobs, all just for doing business with Israel. She even calls Israel a… pic.twitter.com/kGscUytpGN

— Ambassador Mike Waltz (@USAmbUN) April 4, 2026

“This fawning celebrity profile of antisemitic bomb-thrower Francesca Albanese manages to ignore all the ways she’s sabotaging the UN’s mission of peace, from trying to debank Americans to eliminating their jobs, all just for doing business with Israel,” he wrote on X. “She even calls Israel a ‘threat to humanity.’ This happens under a U.N. banner that Americans fund — so we sanctioned her for doing us harm.”

He also blasted the authors of the piece for misrepresenting the piece to him when they reached out for comment.

Francesca Albanese. (Photo by Andrea Staccioli/Insidefoto/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)

“POLITICO’s Daniella Cheslow and Karl Mathieson (who just deleted his account for antisemitic tweets) unethically reached out at the last possible second and claimed they were just doing a story about the sanctions,” he wrote.

“Why is POLITICO running cover for this anti-American, anti-Semitic zealot?” he demanded.

The reference to Mathieson’s antisemitic tweets harks back to 2014, when he posted, “Can someone explain the U.S. reluctance to stand up to Israel? Is it the Jewish lobby? How powerful can it be?”

Just got a heads up that the UN's leading in-house Hamas propagandist, Francesca Albanese, has ONCE AGAIN sent baseless threats to American companies using UN letterhead threatening "criminal liability" (as if she had that authority) for merely working with a U.S. ally.

What an…

— Ambassador Mike Waltz (@USAmbUN) March 31, 2026

Mike Waltz had earlier warned about Albanese, posting on March 31, “Just got a heads up that the UN’s leading in-house Hamas propagandist, Francesca Albanese, has ONCE AGAIN sent baseless threats to American companies using U.N. letterhead threatening ‘criminal liability’ (as if she had that authority) for merely working with a U.S. ally.”

“What an abuse of the U.N.’s resources that could be better spent helping people and resolving conflict. This is why she is sanctioned,” he added.

A large kabbalas pnei rabo gathering held Sunday evening in Bnei Brak in honor of Pesach, attended by thousands, was ordered dispersed by police after public criticism and claims that the event violated Pikud HaOref regulations.

The event took place in a protected beis medrash, where participants gathered and listened to remarks from Hagaon Rav Dov Landau that were broadcast to the crowd. Organizers emphasized that the venue included a designated protected space for attendees.

After media outlets began criticizing the gathering and asserting that it contradicted Home Front Command guidelines, police announced that the event would be shut down, stating that it had not received prior authorization.

“Not long ago, police became aware of a large gathering taking place in an underground structure on the second level in Bnei Brak where there is no apparent danger,” the police said in a statement.

According to the statement, officers immediately engaged with event organizers, seeking either to reduce attendance in line with Pikud HaOref directives or to bring the event to an immediate halt. At that point, the dispersal process had begun.

The police announcement came against the backdrop of a recent High Court ruling that required the state to permit demonstrations in Habima Square involving hundreds of participants, despite opposition from Pikud HaOref.

The judges stated that enforcement of gathering restrictions appeared inconsistent, noting that such rules were being applied to some groups but not others. “It is difficult to reconcile such a situation,” the court ruled, instructing authorities to allow the protest to proceed.

WASHINGTON D.C (VINnews) – U.S. Central Command’s top officer directed a strike on an underground Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps headquarters near Tehran while an airman rescue operation was underway, high-level U.S. sources said.

Adm. Brad Cooper ordered B-2 bombers to hit the IRGC facility using Massive Ordnance Penetrators, the same heavy bunker-busting weapons employed in Operation Midnight Hammer, the sources told Fox News.

The strike targeted an underground site near the Iranian capital, according to the account. Details on the timing and outcome of the operation were not immediately available.

The disclosure comes amid heightened U.S. military actions against Iranian targets in the region. Cooper, as CENTCOM commander, has overseen multiple strikes involving B-2 stealth bombers and other assets against Iranian facilities.

The Pentagon and Central Command had no immediate comment on the reported IRGC headquarters strike.

A devastating car accident involving Israeli tourists near Silistra has left one woman dead and several others injured.

According to ZAKA spokesman Yisrael Chassid, the group had been traveling back from the kever of the Pele Yoetz when their vehicle was involved in a head-on collision with multiple cars. The group had been visiting the area as part of a Pesach vacation organized by a tourism company.

All injured were transported to local hospitals, where doctors fought to save the life of one of the victims. Tragically, a woman from Jerusalem was later pronounced dead.

ZAKA’s international division, together with Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the department for Israelis abroad, is assisting the families and working to arrange the transfer of the nifteres for kevurah in Israel as soon as possible.

Further details are expected to be released.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

A wave of joy has filled the Roteloy family of Arad, as twins—a boy and a girl—were born just two weeks after their young son, Yedidya, miraculously survived being thrown from a fourth-floor apartment during a missile strike.

The birth took place on Chol Hamoed Pesach, bringing a powerful sense of yeshuah and comfort to a family that recently endured a frightening and traumatic ordeal. Family members and local residents described the moment as a deeply emotional turning point after weeks of anxiety.

Roughly two and a half weeks ago, on Motzoei Shabbos, the family’s residential building—home to members of the Gur community in Arad—was struck by an Iranian ballistic missile. The force of the explosion sent three-year-old Yedidya, who had recently celebrated his upsherin, flying out of his bedroom window along with collapsing debris.

He was later found beneath the rubble and rushed to Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva. In extraordinary Hashgachah, he was released after just four days. When reunited with his parents that night, he said, “I didn’t get hurt at all, and suddenly people came and took me in an ambulance.”

In the immediate aftermath of the strike, Yedidya’s father, Reb Tzvi Meir Roteloy, described racing toward the children’s room and discovering that two of his children had survived—but Yedidya’s bed was empty. Trapped inside the shattered apartment, he said he drew strength from a deep sense of emunah even in those terrifying moments.

The direct hit on the fourth floor caused massive structural collapse, yet despite the devastation, the child emerged with barely any injury. The story spread widely and was described by many as a clear neis golui, strengthening the emunah of many who heard how, from such a destructive scene, no lives were lost.

Now, with the birth of the twins, relatives say the family has begun to heal, even as their home is still far from being rebuilt. The new arrivals have brought renewed light and hope to a household that recently witnessed both danger and open nissim.

The New York Times is under fire for sanitizing an antisemitic slur without, apparently, a single editor asking what it actually meant.

The controversy centers on a piece titled “I Think That MAGA Is Dying: Inside the Youth Movement at CPAC,” in which Times reporter Nathan Taylor Pemberton described young conservatives debating “the conservative backlash against those who were ‘J-pilled’ (far-right slang for skepticism of Israeli influence).”

The term does not refer to skepticism of Israeli policy. It refers to conspiratorial and hostile beliefs about Jews. Urban Dictionary, the crowdsourced slang reference, defines the related phrase “Jew pill” in precisely those terms. The “J,” multiple commentators noted pointedly, does not stand for Israel.

“Here’s a hint. It isn’t Israel,” said Melissa Weiss, executive editor of Jewish Insider, who questioned how the description survived the scrutiny of multiple editors. Jerry Dunleavy, chief investigative correspondent for Just The News, accused the Times of “casually whitewashing what ‘J-pilled’ actually means” before adding the same pointed aside: Israel does not begin with the letter J.

Lahav Harkov of Jewish Insider drew a telling comparison, likening the Times’s framing to the BBC’s practice of translating Palestinian references to “Yahood” — the Arabic word for Jews — as “Zionists,” a substitution that obscures antisemitism behind the veneer of political critique.

Political writer Katya Sedgwick suggested the Times’s handling of the term was less an anomaly than a habit. “They are so used to smoothing out woke left antisemitism,” she wrote, “they did the same to woke right.”

The Times has not issued a correction.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

A growing movement inside Israel’s charedi community is reshaping the balance between Torah study, work, and modern life.

Rabbi David Leibel

I
t is no secret that the charedi community in Israel has been in crisis mode for years, even before October 7. The rise of the internet, smartphones, and social media challenged the insular structure of the community, and its leaders initially responded by banning these technologies altogether.

Over time, however, that approach became harder to sustain. As digital tools became essential for many forms of employment, an uneasy compromise emerged: they could be used for “work purposes.” That concession had a far-reaching effect in practice.

It gave rise to a new kind of charedi: ambitious, capable, tech-savvy young men who realized they could not indefinitely remain in kollel while relying on their wives to support the household.

Charedim studying in the Lev Academic Center

Yet even as some found financial stability, their place in the community became more precarious. Many were treated as second-class citizens. Their children were denied admission to schools, and they were often marginalized in communal life.

For many, the result was not just social isolation but spiritual discouragement. Working charedim who wanted to remain committed to Torah life often found themselves with fewer supports than ever before.

Into that void stepped Rabbi David Leibel, a talmid chacham and rosh kollel associated with the classic world of Bnei Brak learning. Educated in Gateshead and Ponovezh, he embodied the traditional model of a full-time Torah scholar.

Yet what he saw deeply troubled him. Many families were struggling financially, and the lack of basic secular education meant their children faced limited opportunities.

About 15 years ago, he founded a kollel for working charedim. It evolved into Achvas Torah, a network designed to provide dignity, community, and serious Torah learning for working men.

“
Everyone needs everyone. The working person needs the avrech, and the avrech needs the working person.

More than just providing a place to learn, Rabbi Leibel offered these men something they had often been denied: honor. He framed their path as a legitimate and meaningful way of life.

He later founded Avratech, combining Torah study with preparation for careers in technology, and L’Ovda, a track focused on practical skills like electrical work.

The movement he helped build is reshaping the conversation around work, dignity, and Torah life in the charedi world, creating an entirely new framework for community.

If heading out with the kids this Chol Hamoed, this can be useful.

Via Status.

Democrats hold a five-point lead on the generic congressional ballot, but CNN data analyst Harry Enten said Monday that number should worry the party more than reassure it.

Appearing on CNN with anchor John Berman, Enten framed the current Democratic advantage as historically underwhelming given the political environment.

“Democrats are ahead, but they’re only ahead by five with a president whose net approval rating is bordering on -20 to -30, depending on what polls you look at,” he said. “You’d make the argument Democrats should be way ahead. And they’re just only sort of, slightly ahead.”

By comparison, Democrats led by eight points on the generic ballot at this stage of the 2018 cycle and by 11 points during the 2006 wave. “That’s less than it was back in 2018 when it was eight points, and way less than it was during the 2006 cycle when it was 11 points,” Enten noted.

Enten said five points is likely sufficient for Democrats to flip the House, but falls well short of what they need on the Senate map. Walking through the math, he explained that if Republicans simply hold every state Trump won by more than 10 points, they retain the chamber 51-49 — even after losing North Carolina and Maine.

“Five points is almost certainly not enough if you apply it to the Senate map,” he said. “What you would see is that the Democrats would flip North Carolina, they would flip Maine, but Republicans would hold on to Ohio, they’d hold on to Texas, and they’d hold on to Alaska because Donald Trump won all those states by greater than 10 points.”

He called it the “chalk scenario” — the most straightforward outcome — and backed it with a historical data point: during the Trump era, no party has flipped a Senate seat in a state the opposing presidential candidate won by 10 or more points. “Zero, zero, zero times did a party flip those states,” Enten said.

The generic ballot weakness, Enten argued, is compounded by a party favorability deficit that has no recent precedent heading into a midterm with a Republican president. In 2018, Democrats led on net favorability by 12 points. In 2006, they led by 18. Today, Republicans are ahead by five.

“Democrats are just, simply put, running behind their previous benchmarks,” Enten said, “and they need to be running well ahead of them if they want to take back the United States Senate given that math.”

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(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The Torah world is mourning the petirah of Rav Yosef Sholom Halevi Weinfeld zt”l, a distinguished mechaber seforim whose lifelong work opened the door for countless Yidden to access and understand foundational sifrei kodesh. He was niftar Thursday night at the age of 82.

Rav Weinfeld zt”l was widely recognized for his acclaimed “Yesod Malchus” commentary, as well as for his leadership of the historic “Eshkol” publishing house, which for generations has played a central role in the dissemination of Torah literature.

He was born on ט”ו אייר תש”ד (1944) to his father, Rav Yaakov Shaul Weinfeld zt”l, author of Mishnas Yaakov and founder of the Eshkol publishing house, and his mother, Mrs. Rachel Goldberg a”h, daughter of Rav Tzvi Hirsch Goldberg zt”l.

In his younger years, he learned under the Vizhnitzer Rebbe, the Yeshuos Moshe zt”l, from whom he later received warm haskamos on his seforim.

After the petirah of his father in תשמ”ט (1989), the publishing enterprise was divided among the brothers. His brother, Rav Shmuel Yehuda Halevi Weinfeld, went on to establish the Shai L’Mora publishing house, while Rav Yosef Sholom zt”l continued at the helm of Eshkol, where he significantly broadened its scope and impact.

Under his guidance, Eshkol produced a vast array of seforim, many featuring clear and structured explanations that greatly assisted lomdim in their limud and tefillah.

His most well-known contribution, the Yesod Malchus system, offered a unique word-by-word explanation printed alongside the original text, allowing readers to immediately grasp the meaning without needing to search through multiple mekoros. This approach provided both clarity in understanding and ease of use, making it especially valuable for a wide range of learners.

Over time, this commentary was published on many central sifrei kodesh, including Tehillim, siddurim, machzorim, Chumash, Nach, and zemiros of Shabbos, and was widely regarded as an innovative and practical format that enhanced accessibility to Torah.

Among the many seforim distributed by Eshkol are the well-known siddur Tefillas Kol Peh, and menukad editions of the Shishah Sidrei Mishnah, all of which found their way into kehillos around the world.

The levaya took place on Friday in Yerushalayim, and he was brought to kevurah on Har HaZeisim.

Yehi zichro boruch.

HAIFA (VINnews) — A family of four was killed Sunday when an Iranian missile scored a direct hit on their residential building in Haifa, collapsing multiple floors as they sought shelter in a stairwell.

The victims were identified Monday day as Lena Ostrovsky Gershovitz, 70, her husband Vladimir Gershovitz, 73, their son Dima Gershovitz, 42, and Dima’s wife Lucille-Jane Gershovitz, 30. Rescue teams recovered their bodies from the rubble after an 18-hour operation.

Just hours before the strike, Dima had brought his father home from a prolonged hospitalization at Rambam Hospital. The family, fearing the elderly couple could not reach the shelter in time, took cover in the stairwell of their first-floor apartment. All four were crushed when the upper floors collapsed onto them.

Lilach Levin, a friend of the family, recounted the tragedy through tears: “A rare family, in a split second everyone’s lives were cut short.”

Levin added that Dima “managed to bring Vladimir back from the hospital, and unfortunately the missile hit the residence and that’s how all four of them were killed.”

Lena Ostrovsky, a veteran voice development teacher at the Nissan Nativ acting studio in Jerusalem, had taught generations of actors for three decades. The actors’ organization MASHAM expressed deep sorrow, describing her as a “legendary” instructor who nurtured students “with dedication, professionalism, and above all, great love.”

Dima, a software engineer at JFrog for the past nine years, was remembered as a gifted individual who studied at the Technion in Haifa and later at Reichman University in Herzliya. “From childhood he stood out as a gifted child, a little genius,” Levin said. “He was fluent in 11 languages, played the piano at a high level, painted, loved to cook, and expressed creativity and excellence in every field he touched.”

Lucille-Jane, originally from the Philippines, met Dima while he was traveling there. The couple married in April 2012. “For years she was afraid to come to Israel, but she chose to follow their love,” Levin said. “They dreamed of a family and children — dreams that will no longer come true.”

Vladimir was retired. The family originally immigrated from Kiev, and Dima was their only son.

According to the IDF, the missile disintegrated in the air after an interception failed. Fragments struck the six-story building, causing the top three floors to collapse onto the lower levels where the Gershovitz family lived. The four were on the first floor when the siren sounded; the nearest protected space required leaving the building.

The strike was part of Iran’s missile barrage on Israel.

Hamas declared that any discussion of its disarmament before the first phase of the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire is fully implemented amounts to “an overt attempt to continue the genocide against the Palestinian people” — the group’s sharpest public pushback yet against a central element of President Donald Trump’s postwar vision for Gaza.

In a televised statement, Hamas’s armed wing spokesperson Abu Ubaida said raising the weapons issue “in a crude manner” would not be accepted. “What the enemy is trying to push through today against the Palestinian resistance, via our brotherly mediators, is extremely dangerous,” he said.

It was not immediately clear whether the remarks constituted a formal rejection of the US-backed disarmament framework. Hamas political officials did not respond to requests for comment, and Israel offered no immediate response to Ubaida’s statement.

Hamas’s disarmament is among the most significant sticking points in efforts to implement Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace” plan for Gaza, which aims to cement the ceasefire that halted two years of full-scale fighting last October. Three sources told Reuters last week that Hamas has told mediators it will not discuss giving up its weapons without guarantees that Israel will fully withdraw from Gaza.

Hamas accused Israel of “calling for an illusory peace through brute force, spreading destruction across the entire region.”

Ubaida urged mediators to pressure Israel to fulfill its commitments under phase one before any conversation about phase two — including disarmament — can take place. “The enemy is the one who undermines the agreement,” he said.

Since the ceasefire took effect, Hamas and Israel have repeatedly accused each other of violating its terms, with no resolution to the sequencing dispute in sight.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The Chabad community is in mourning following the petirah of Rav Yechiel Yerachmiel Nafrestek zt”l, one of the elder chassidim and longtime residents of Kfar Chabad, who passed away Monday morning at the age of 93.

A beloved and respected figure, Rav Nafrestek zt”l was among the earliest settlers of Kfar Chabad and played a central role in building the community from its earliest days. He was widely known for his decades of devoted service as the secretary of the famed Beis Rivkah seminary.

He was born on the 12th of Tammuz 1933 in the town of Siedlce, Poland, to his father, Rav Reuven Dovber Nafrestek zt”l, a talmid of Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim in Warsaw, and his mother, Rebbetzin Chaya Gittel a”h.

With the outbreak of World War II, the family fled to Russia, where under the harsh conditions of Soviet rule, he learned Torah in secret together with his brother, with true mesirus nefesh. During those difficult years of war and starvation, his mother passed away from hunger, leaving the family bereaved.

After the war, as Polish nationals, the family received permission to leave and joined the famed “Great Escape” of Chabad chassidim. They made their way to the displaced persons camp in Pocking, Germany, then to Paris, before ultimately coming to Eretz Yisroel, where they were among the founding residents who established Kfar Chabad in 1949.

In his youth, he learned in the yeshivos of Tomchei Temimim in Pocking, Paris, Tel Aviv, and Lod. After his marriage, he settled in Kfar Chabad and began his lifelong role as secretary of the Beis Rivkah seminary, a position he fulfilled with dedication for many decades.

Rav Nafrestek zt”l was known as a deeply connected chossid to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He was actively involved in the Rebbe’s mivtzoim, especially tefillin, which he carried out with enthusiasm and devotion well into his later years.

Just six months ago, his older brother, Rav Yisroel Aharon Nafrestek zt”l, one of the elder residents of the village, was niftar. The two brothers, who endured the hardships of the war together and later helped build Chabad institutions in Eretz Yisroel, stood as a living symbol of a remarkable generation.

He leaves behind a distinguished family following the path of Torah and chassidus.

His sons: Rav Shmuel Yaakov, Rav Shlomo Dovid, Rav Yisroel, and Rav Yosef Yitzchok.

His daughters: Mrs. Bloy, Mrs. Halperin, Mrs. Nafrestek, and Mrs. Weinberg.

The levaya was held at his home at 19 Toras Shmuel Street in Kfar Chabad, and at the Shamgar Funeral Home en route to Har HaZeisim in Yerushalayim.

Tehei nishmaso tzerurah b’tzror hachaim.

Following a salvo of drones launched at southern Israel this afternoon, the Iran-backed Houthis claimed responsibility, saying the strike was intended to take out military targets in Eilat and was conducted in coordination with Iran and Hezbollah.

The IDF said it intercepted some of the drones, but lost contact with others, which presumably crashed somewhere unknown.

While southern Israel was under attack, missiles were fired at central Israel from Iran and at northern Israel from Hezbollah, triggering sirens across the region.

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Every major Kurdish Iranian opposition group has denied receiving weapons from the United States, after President Donald Trump told Fox News that his administration had sent guns to Iranian protesters through Kurdish intermediaries — an account that party officials and regional experts say does not hold up.

The denials came in response to a Fox News report on Sunday by correspondent Trey Yingst, citing Trump directly: “We sent guns to the protesters, a lot of them…. And I think the Kurds took the guns.”

The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan said the Fox News claims are “inaccurate and do not reflect reality.” PJAK, the Kurdistan Free Life Party, said there is “no such relationship” with the US. Komala stated it has “not received any form of military or arms assistance from the US.” Senior officials at both the Kurdistan Regional Government and Iraq’s Ministry of Peshmerga told journalist Diyar Kurda they were “not aware of any weapons being transferred.”

Wladimir van Wilgenburg, a journalist and expert on Kurdish affairs, wrote on X that he had spoken to multiple Iranian Kurdish party leaders on the ground, all of whom denied the reports. Regional expert Shukriya Bradost similarly said that “based on my sources within Kurdish parties, none of them received any weapons during Iran’s protests.”

Kurdish groups operate in western Iran’s border regions — far from Tehran, Tabriz, and Isfahan, where protests were concentrated. Movement in those areas relies largely on pedestrian routes, making large-scale arms transfers logistically implausible. And there is no unified non-Kurdish Iranian opposition capable of receiving or distributing a shipment even if one arrived.

Additionally, Iran’s rural border regions are already heavily armed, serving as weapons distribution hubs for insurgencies across the region. If functional smuggling corridors into Iran’s cities existed, protesters would not need American guns to access them.

This is the second time Kurdish groups have found themselves at the center of disputed war reporting. In early March, reports of an imminent Kurdish offensive into Iran proved false — the offensive never happened, and details appear to have been leaked prematurely. On March 8, Trump told reporters he did not want to see Kurds getting hurt in the war.

Since February 28, Iran has struck Kurdish opposition bases in northern Iraq hundreds of times using Iraqi militia proxies, killing and wounding group members. The groups have resisted pressure to launch a unilateral uprising, calculating that they would bear the brunt of any regime response while rival opposition factions accused them of separatism.

Most remain lightly armed with small arms acquired over years of low-level conflict. Despite launching no offensive operations, they have been targeted repeatedly — and the latest round of disputed reporting, Kurdish officials made clear, is precisely the kind of attention they can do without.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Three chareidi teenagers who became stranded overnight on the cliffs of Nachal Darga were safely rescued Monday morning in a coordinated aerial operation involving emergency and rescue forces.

The rescue was carried out by an airborne team from the Lehava unit, working together with a police helicopter from the aerial division, after the teens were stuck for hours on a steep and dangerous slope at a location known as Point 12 in the Darga cliffs.

The boys had set out on a Chol Hamoed hike despite the ongoing war and found themselves unable to continue along the route, leaving them stranded in difficult terrain throughout the night.

Rescuers executed a complex extraction under challenging conditions, with the helicopter hovering low to the ground in a maneuver known as “hovering,” allowing the team to lift the teens into the aircraft.

Once the rescue was completed, the helicopter transported them to a designated evacuation point, where medical personnel were waiting. The teens were found to be in good condition and did not require hospitalization, leaving the scene on their own.

Police said the incident was first reported at 1:30 a.m., when it was learned that three youths were stuck along the southern slope of Nachal Darga with no ability to proceed. A small team of volunteers from the Megillos Dead Sea Rescue Unit established contact with the teens and pinpointed their location. It was then decided that the rescue would be carried out at first light.

At daybreak, a police helicopter was dispatched to locate and extract the teens, while an additional support team from the unit’s technical rescue division was positioned at the Nachal Darga landing zone as backup.

The operation was conducted in coordination with multiple agencies, including the IDF’s height rescue division, the Israel Police air unit, the Lehava unit, regional fire and rescue services from the Binyamin station, United Hatzalah, and volunteers from the regional rescue unit.

The American weapons officer stranded for nearly 36 hours in Iranian mountain terrain did more than hide and wait — he actively directed airstrikes against advancing Iranian forces from his crevice on a 7,000-foot ridgeline, using emergency communications equipment, The New York Times reported.

The new details paint a picture of an operation that was as chaotic as it was daring, marked by a 14-hour communication blackout, a last-minute equipment failure that nearly stranded the rescue team alongside their target, and a classified CIA technology that cracked the search when conventional methods came up short.

After his F-15 was shot down Friday morning, the weapons officer hiked to a high ridgeline and wedged himself into a rocky crevice, according to American military officials cited by the Times. From that position, he was able to observe Iranian forces moving in his direction and relay their locations to rescuers, who used the intelligence to call in strikes against the advancing troops.

There was no firefight between US and Iranian forces, the Times reported. US officials noted that the region where the officer came down is one that is “strongly opposed to the Iranian regime,” a factor that may have worked in his favor. It remains unclear how close Iranian forces actually came to his hiding place.

American forces began rescue efforts from the moment the jet went down, but received no sign of life from the airman for approximately 14 hours, consistent with earlier reporting that he was unconscious upon landing and initially unable to make contact.

Once a signal was finally received, it took additional hours to pinpoint his location and confirm his identity. That process was cracked by what the Times described only as “a special piece of technology” unique to the CIA. No further details were provided.

The timeline raised questions about an earlier statement attributed to Trump, who told Axios the crewman had radioed a message after ejecting from the aircraft — quoted by a US official as: “God is good.” How that account squares with the reported 14-hour blackout was not immediately clear.

The most harrowing stretch of the operation came not during the search, but during the extraction itself.

The airman was meant to depart Iran aboard one of two C-130 transport aircraft, flying out alongside his rescuers from a makeshift airstrip constructed specifically for the mission. But the nose gear of at least one of the planes — and possibly both — became stuck in the sand. Rescue teams spent hours trying to free the aircraft before the effort was abandoned and replacement aircraft were called in.

The replacements were smaller turboprop aircraft, capable of operating from short, austere airstrips — precisely the kind of field the team was now working with. Their arrival made the extraction possible.

The original C-130s, along with four MH-6 special operations helicopters used in the mission, were destroyed by airstrikes after the rescue team departed — standard procedure to prevent sensitive equipment from falling into Iranian hands.

Israel worked alongside the US throughout the operation, both to gather intelligence — including confirming whether the airman was alone — and to carry out strikes providing cover for American commandos on the ground during the extraction, the Times reported. Earlier reporting by The Jerusalem Post established that IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and US Central Command Commander Admiral Brad Cooper remained in direct contact throughout the 48-hour window.

Throughout the operation, the White House, Pentagon, and CENTCOM maintained an unusual public silence. Trump, typically prolific on social media, went quiet enough that a local reporter traveled to Walter Reed Hospital to check whether he had been admitted, according to Reuters.

The silence was deliberate. When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reached Trump by phone after the weapons officer’s emergency beacon finally activated Friday night, he told the president that everything about the pilot’s earlier rescue — already reported in the media — had to remain publicly unacknowledged until the second airman was safe. A prepared CENTCOM statement on the pilot’s extraction was quietly shelved.

Trump announced the second rescue early Sunday morning on Truth Social.

“This is the first time in military memory that two US Pilots have been rescued, separately, deep in Enemy Territory,” he wrote. “WE WILL NEVER LEAVE AN AMERICAN WARFIGHTER BEHIND!”

It was the first time the US has lost aircraft over Iranian territory since the war began February 28, when a wave of US and Israeli airstrikes killed, among others, then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Two senior Iranian leaders — including one of the country’s top spies and the head of its undercover forces — were killed in overnight airstrikes on the capital, Tehran, state media and Israel’s defense minister said Monday, shortly before the Islamic Republic rejected a Pakistani-brokered ceasefire deal.

Israel and the United States carried out a wave of strikes on the regime, killing more than 25 people.

The joint strikes successfully targeted Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi, the head of intelligence for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Khademi was effectively Number two within the IRGC, one of the few senior commanders who managed to survive multiple waves of Israeli and American targeting over the past year. He oversaw an intelligence apparatus that repeatedly failed to detect or prevent major Israeli and US operations, exposing deep vulnerabilities inside Iran’s security system. Khademi was deeply involved in attempts to penetrate US systems, including efforts to breach the Pentagon.

The second high-ranking official was Ashgar Bakeri, leader of the Revolutionary Guard’s undercover unit in its expeditionary Quds Force, the Israel Defense Forces said. Bakeri was directly involved in recruiting agents across the Middle East and orchestrating attacks against American targets in Iraq and Syria, including operations that led to US casualties.

The elimination of two high-profile targets by Israel is the latest in a series of attacks aimed at wiping out the Iranian military and political leadership. On March 16, Ali Larijani, head of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, was killed in an Israeli airstrike, just days after he issued a warning to President Trump. Larijani had told Trump he could be “eliminated” if the US-Israeli bombings of Iran didn’t cease. The 67-year-old had been acting as Iran’s de facto leader since the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Feb. 28 in the early hours of Operation Epic Fury.

In tandem with the targeting of military personnel, the IDF has continued a widespread assault on Iranian infrastructure:

Defense Minister Yisrael Katz said earlier that the IDF has been instructed to continue striking with full force the national infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime.

A second petrochemical facility in Iran, the Marvdasht Petrochemical Complex, was targeted by a US-Israeli attack, Iranian media reports.

The Fars news agency reports that a fire that sparked at the complex was brought under control, and no casualties were caused.

Earlier, Israel confirmed striking Iran’s largest petrochemical facility in Asaluyeh.

Over the weekend, Israel also struck petrochemical facilities in southern Iran.

Amidst the military operations, discussions regarding a potential ceasefire have emerged, though a diplomatic breakthrough remains stalled by firm opposition from Tehran.

Pakistani Proposal: The Pakistani-brokered plan emerged from intense overnight contacts and proposes an immediate ceasefire, followed by negotiations on a broader peace settlement to be concluded within 15 to 20 days.

US Stance: US President Donald Trump will speak about a Pakistani ceasefire proposal at a press conference at 1 p.m. local time (8 p.m. in Israel). A White House official states that this is one of many ideas, and Trump has not signed off on it, adding that Operation Epic Fury continues. Additionally, Washington was not ready for a permanent ceasefire.

Iran has sent to Pakistan its response to the U.S. proposal to end the war, IRNA reports. Tehran’s response, which consists of ten paragraphs, rejects a ceasefire, and includes a set of demands, including an end to conflicts in the region, a protocol for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, reconstruction, and lifting sanctions.

Meanwhile, a senior Iranian official earlier told Reuters that Iran will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz as part of a temporary ceasefire, nor would it accept deadlines or pressure to reach a deal.

In a related development, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi discussed the Iran conflict and other developments in a call Monday.

Iran has rejected a temporary ceasefire proposal, according to Islamic Republic News Agency, telling mediators it will only agree to a full end to the war — including against Hezbollah — along with sanctions relief and reconstruction aid.

HEBRON, WEST BANK – MARCH 06: Missiles launched from Iran in retaliation for Israeli attacks are seen in the night sky over the city of Hebron in the West Bank on March 06, 2026. (Photo by Wisam Hashlamoun/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Tehran is also demanding control over the Strait of Hormuz, renewed nuclear talks, and has firmly rejected any limits on its ballistic missile program.

The demands directly contradict Israeli and U.S. conditions, pointing toward likely escalation.

Mojtaba Khamenei; the son of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; is seen in Tehran; Iran; on December 14; 2016. (Photo by Reza B / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images)

Iran has rejected a U.S.-backed proposal for a temporary ceasefire, according to IRNA, instead demanding a complete halt to hostilities and guarantees for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

The report says Tehran submitted a 10-clause response to mediators, with one source telling The Jerusalem Post that “the gaps are very significant.”

President Donald Trump has warned that failure to reach a deal by Tuesday could result in severe consequences for Tehran.

Meanwhile, a proposed framework brokered by Pakistan calls for a two-stage process—an immediate ceasefire followed by broader negotiations—but major disagreements remain.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The IDF completed a massive wave of large-scale strikes in Tehran overnight, destroying dozens of the regime’s critical aerial assets in a crucial blow to the Iranian Air Force and the IRGC Air Force at airports in Tehran, further advancing the military’s goal to degrade Iran’s military capabilities, the IDF said Monday. Across three airports in Tehran, the IDF obliterated such aerial assets as helicopters and other aircraft, along with various types of military infrastructure contained within the airports.

The IDF strikes helicopters at airports in Tehran. (Credit: IDF)

The three airports targeted included Bahram Airport, Mehrabad Airport and Azmayesh Airport. Mehrabad Airport in particular was noted in the IDF’s statement for its use by the IRGC’s elite Quds Force and for serving as the central hub for arming and financing Iran’s terrorist proxies across the region, as aircraft from Mehrabad funneled weapons and cash directly into their hands. The IDF said it has repeatedly targeted the airport during Operation Roaring Lion.

Credit: IDF

As part of its war aim to degrade Iran’s military capabilities and ensure the regime never again threatens Israel, the IDF vowed to continue its mission. “The IDF will continue to intensify its efforts to degrade the core capabilities and foundations of the Iranian regime,” the IDF said in its statement.

IDF forces from the Nachal Brigade have eliminated the three terrorists responsible for the deaths of four elite reconnaissance soldiers in southern Lebanon, in close-range combat operations, the IDF confirmed.

Troops from the Nachal Reconnaissance Unit have been continuing operations in the southern Lebanon sector, where they are engaged in targeting terrorists, locating weapons, and dismantling terror infrastructure as part of ongoing military activity.

During these operations, the unit successfully tracked down and killed the three terrorists responsible for the deaths of Capt. Noam Madmoni, Sgt. First Class Ben Cohen, Sgt. First Class Maxim Antis, and Sgt. First Class Gilad Harel z”l.

The terrorists were eliminated in direct, face-to-face combat, and subsequent intelligence verification confirmed that they were indeed the individuals behind the deadly attack on the four soldiers.

The IDF emphasized that its forces will continue operating in southern Lebanon with the goal of protecting Israeli civilians, particularly residents of the northern communities.

Commenting on the developments, Nachal Brigade Commander Col. Erik Moyal said, “Our mission is clear — to defend the residents of the north. We paid a heavy price in recent days with the loss of four reconnaissance soldiers, but we succeeded in eliminating those terrorists and will continue moving forward.”

Iran has shifted to a decentralized, guerrilla-style method of warfare similar to Hezbollah, increasing attempts to target aircraft with dispersed missile launches, according to an Israeli Air Force official, as aerial operations continue under heightened risk.

The development comes in the wake of last Friday’s downing of an American fighter jet over Iran and the subsequent rescue of its crew, underscoring the dangers facing air forces operating in the region.

A senior source in the Israeli Air Force told Walla that from the very beginning of Operation “Shaagas HaAri,” and continuing through the present, the missions have involved significant and ongoing danger. He noted that new threats are constantly emerging, requiring continuous effort to detect and neutralize them.

“There is relentless, difficult, and deep work in the Air Force, 24/7, to identify and locate threats (surface-to-air missiles). Every day, new threats appear like mushrooms after the rain, with new capabilities that the Iranians are bringing into the arena during the war. We experience this constantly. We are in a learning race with a smart enemy.”

He added that Israeli aircraft continue to operate under persistent threat conditions. “We are flying under threat. We flew throughout March and April, and we continue to fly under threat. This is a daily war. We must be able to reflect the threats and not fly into them — not to send our pilots and aircraft into danger — all while understanding that there are missions that must be carried out.”

According to the official, Iran has increasingly adopted a guerrilla-style approach, launching missiles from multiple dispersed locations rather than relying on centralized systems. “In the end, such a missile can hit an aircraft. Its efficiency as a system is lower, but in the end, one missile hitting a plane is enough to bring it down.” He noted that Israeli aircraft are indeed facing numerous surface-to-air missile launches from the ground.

Addressing the effort to neutralize these threats, the source said that the campaign against Iran’s surface-to-air missile systems is ongoing and far from complete. “It was not decided in the opening strike. The opening strike gave us an excellent starting point, but there are risks, and just as an American aircraft was downed, we too could lose an aircraft.”

MIAMI (AP) — The first and only kind of robot approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for dental implant procedures is being used in South Florida, as clinics adopt new technology aimed at improving precision and recovery times.

Neocis, a Miami-based company, developed the Yomi robotic system, which assists dentists in planning and placing implants using digital imaging and real-time guidance. The system uses 3D imaging from X-rays to map out procedures in advance and guides dentists during surgery, helping control drill depth and positioning in real time.

Dr. Reinol Gonzalez, a South Florida dentist using the technology, said the system allows for more precise placement while reducing the need for invasive techniques such as cutting the gums. He said the approach can lead to shorter procedure times, less discomfort and faster healing for patients.

Patients such as Jorge Curebelo, who recently underwent the procedure, said the experience was smoother than expected despite initial concerns about the use of robotics. He said he felt little to no pain during the implant process.

Neocis said about 25 dentists in Florida currently use the system, including 16 in South Florida. While the Yomi system is currently used for dental implants, the company said it expects the technology could expand in the future to support additional procedures such as crowns and fillings.

The IDF published a statement Monday detailing its continual and astonishing successes on the ground in Lebanon. Troops from the Golani Brigade, pressing forward with their precisely focused ground operations against Hezbollah, have thus far dismantled more than 300 sites dedicated to terrorist infrastructure, including weapons storage facilities, booby-trapped buildings and enemy positions, in both air and ground strikes.

Credit: IDF

On the battlefield, the soldiers took down dozens of Hezbollah terrorists and uncovered numerous [weapons caches](IDF: 300+ H*zbollah Sites Dismantled in Lebanon Push) underground, exposing 10 tunnel shafts and appropriating hundreds of weapons.

The IDF vowed to continue its campaign against Hezbollah and protect Israeli civilians from harm.

“The IDF will continue to operate with determination against the Hezbollah terrorist organization and will not allow harm to come to the residents of Israel,” the military said in its statement.

Credit: IDF

A tense and stormy discussion unfolded overnight in Israel’s security cabinet over the High Court’s involvement in decisions regarding large-scale protests and access for mispallelim at the Kosel against the backdrop of ongoing security threats and Home Front Command restrictions.

Several ministers sharply criticized the court’s intervention, insisting that such decisions must remain solely in the hands of security authorities. Justice Minister Yariv Levin said, “A decision must be made that it is not the court that determines, but only the Home Front Command.” He added that the police must follow the directives of security officials alone, stating, “It is inconceivable that a court ignores the security authority.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir echoed that position but stressed the importance of equal treatment. “Where the Home Front Command permits, there cannot be discrimination between Habima protesters and those ascending to the Mount or coming to the Kosel,” he said. He added that once demonstrations were permitted in Tel Aviv, authorities should explore ways to allow tefillah at the Kosel and Har Habayis in a secure and responsible manner.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar supported Levin’s remarks but emphasized that the ultimate authority lies with the government. “It is the government that decides, not the Home Front Command. Our considerations are broader,” he said.

Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu also criticized the High Court’s conduct, saying, “They have created a situation where everything is now open.” He added that he intends to convey a clear message that the Home Front Command must be the deciding authority on security matters, questioning, “How can a court intervene in this?”

Levin reinforced Netanyahu’s concerns, warning of the potential consequences. “They bear no responsibility — if civilians are harmed by a missile strike, that responsibility falls on us,” he said.

Ben Gvir expanded his criticism to include the state prosecution, arguing that it is not faithfully representing the government’s position. “The prosecution is also rebelling and is not presenting our position to the court,” he said, noting that he felt compelled to appear personally in order to present his stance. “This is not normal — the prosecution is supposed to represent us.”

Deputy Attorney General Sharon Afek responded by clarifying that no final ruling has yet been issued by the High Court and that an additional hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

We regret to inform you of the Petirah of Rebbetzin Doris Fine A”H, wife of HaRav Mordechai Dov Fine Shlit”a, Morah D’asra of Machzikei Hadas of Scranton.

She is the mother of Rebbetzin Becky Charlop A”H (Cleveland), Rav Yoni Fine (Lakewood), Mrs. Esti Frankel (Lakewood), Rav Menachem Fine (Chicago), Mrs. Chevy Weisler (Lakewood), R’ Zvi Fine (Lakewood), R’ Meir Fine (Chicago), R’ Dovid Fine (Eretz Yisroel), and Mrs. Penina Akerman (Philadelphia).

The Levaya is scheduled to take place Monday morning at 9:30 AM at the Lakewood Chapel, 613 Ramsey Avenue, Lakewood.

The aron will then depart from JFK Airport for kevurah in Eretz Yisroel at approximately 12:00 PM, from 75 North Hangar Road, Cargo Building D, Queens, NY. Tehillim and a gathering will take place depending on timing.

Baruch Dayan Ha’emes.

Pursuant to its goal of crippling Iran’s Quds Force Special Operations Unit, the IDF confirmed Monday that a precise strike in Tehran yesterday took out Asghar Bagheri, the longtime commander of the Quds Force’s elite Special Operations Unit (840).

Unit 840 is a secretive, elite unit tasked with orchestrating terrorist attacks against Jews and Israelis worldwide, and Bagheri played a key role in plotting and carrying out international attacks against those targets, as well as Americans, globally. He also held top roles in advancing terror operations inside Israel, as well as in Syria and Lebanon.

Using intelligence obtained from Syrian informants who had previously served in the Syrian army under Bashar al-Assad, the former dictator of Syria, Bagheri orchestrated attacks against IDF soldiers stationed along the border between Syria and Israel. Bagheri personally led these attacks, with the help and support of his deputy, Mohammad Reza Ansari, and Qassem Salah al-Husseini. The latter was eliminated near Beirut in 2025.

What’s more, Bagheri worked on the transfer of weapons from Iran directly into the hands of terrorists operating within Israel, increasing the threat the Quds Force poses to Israel.

His elimination marks yet another blow to Iran’s Quds Force as part of Israel’s operation to neutralize the threat emanating from Iran.

Iran is preparing for a sustained conflict and does not intend to accept the conditions being set by the United States and Israel, according to a report citing regional diplomatic sources.

An Arab diplomat involved in ongoing contacts between Tehran and Washington said Iranian leadership believes it can continue fighting for an extended period and ultimately end the war on terms more favorable to itself. The report was presented Monday morning on a news program on Israel’s Kan public broadcaster.

According to the diplomat, this assessment is not only being conveyed publicly but is also firmly held behind closed doors within Iran’s leadership. Officials in Tehran view the demands coming from Washington and Jerusalem as tantamount to surrender, and for that reason have not even responded to President Donald Trump’s reported 15-point proposal.

The same source said Iranian officials believe they have the capacity to withstand a prolonged military campaign while inflicting even greater damage on Israel, the United States, and other countries in the region.

As a result, diplomatic circles in the Middle East are increasingly pessimistic about the chances of de-escalation, with officials warning that only an extraordinary development is likely to prevent further escalation of the conflict.

(AP) – U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee wrote in a social media post on Monday that Israel’s military and Mossad secret service had assisted in the U.S. effort to rescue an airman whose plane was downed by Iran.

Huckabee thanked Israel for helping the U.S. military and intelligence agencies in the post to X.

Israeli officials have said Israel provided support, including intelligence, in the rescue, but troops weren’t actively involved on the ground.

Just met w/ @IsraeliPM to thank @Israel on behalf of American ppl for unprecedented assistance to US Military & Intel agencies who conducted a historic rescue mission of our air crew in Iran. US SF carried out brilliant op. @IDF & Mossad were helpful partners in the mission.

— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) April 6, 2026

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s spy agency says it’s now fair to view the teenage daughter of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as his heir, its strongest assessment yet on the rising political status of the girl who it believes could extend her family’s rule into a fourth generation.

The girl, dubbed by state media as Kim’s “most beloved” or “respected” child, has accompanied her father to numerous high-profile events since late 2022, sparking outside speculation that she’s being groomed as the North’s future leader.

In a closed-door briefing at the National Assembly Monday, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service director Lee Jong-seok said the girl could be considered Kim’s successor, in response to questions by lawmakers about her political standing, according to Lee Seong Kweun, one of the lawmakers who attended the meeting.

Asked about possible protests by Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong, who has been long regarded as the North’s No. 2 figure, the NIS director responded that she has no substantial powers, lawmaker Lee told a briefing. He cited the NIS as citing unspecified “reliable intelligence.”

It was a stronger assessment by the NIS on the girl’s status. In early 2024, it described the girl as her father’s likely heir, its first official assessment on her possible grooming as the North’s next leader. In February this year, the agency said it believed she was close to being designated as the country’s future leader.

Some observers disagree with the NIS’ assessment, saying North Korea’s extremely male-centered society won’t likely embrace a woman leader. They also said Kim, 42, is too young to name his successor, a development that could weaken his grip on power.

The girl is reportedly named Kim Ju Ae and aged about 13, but North Korea’s state media hasn’t released such personal details. Her reported name is based on an account by former NBA star Dennis Rodman, who recalled holding Kim Jong Un’s baby daughter during a trip to Pyongyang in 2013.

Established in 1948, North Korea has been successively ruled by male members of the Kim family. Kim Jong Un inherited power upon his father Kim Jong Il’s death in late 2011. Kim Jong Il took over power after his father and state founder Kim Il Sung died in 1994.

Some of the girl’s recent public appearances included her driving a tank during army training supervised by her father and the pair firing pistols during a visit to a light munitions factory.

During Monday’s briefing, the NIS said North Korean authorities appeared to have organized such events to build up her military credentials and “reduce skepticism about a woman successor,” lawmaker Lee said.

Park Sunwon, another lawmaker who attended the briefing, made similar comments on the NIS’ assessment on the girl’s recent military appearances.

ZANJAN, Iran (AP) — A black banner hangs over the border crossing and portraits of Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stare down, promising vengeance against the United States and Israel.

But on the 12-hour drive south to the capital, Tehran, daily life continued, with only occasional signs of the ongoing war, including a Shiite religious center that officials say was damaged by a recent airstrike.

Associated Press reporters made the journey on Saturday after crossing into Iran from Turkey. They gained a glimpse of the country at the center of a regional war that has jolted the world economy and shows no sign of ending five weeks after Khamenei was killed in the opening U.S. and Israeli salvo.

The Associated Press has been granted permission by the Iranian government to send an additional team into the country for a brief reporting trip. AP already operates in Iran. The visiting team must be accompanied by a fixer from a government-affiliated company. AP retains full editorial control of its content.

A religious center damaged by an airstrike
The first major sign of the war’s destruction came in the northwestern city of Zanjan, about six hours’ drive from the border.

Iranian officials say an airstrike hit a religious community center, known as a husseiniyah, killing two people and destroying a clinic and a library. Other parts of the compound, some of which is centuries old, suffered damage, including its golden dome.

A worker cleans an area within the Grand Hosseiniyeh complex, with the mosque visible in the background, that officials say was hit by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes Tuesday in Zanjan, Iran, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

When asked about the strike, the Israeli military said it had hit “a military headquarters,” and that it tries to avoid harming civilian facilities, without elaborating.

“It has hurt me a lot and distressed me a lot,” said Somayeh Shojaei, a local resident who has attended religious and cultural events at the center. “With these airstrikes, (the U.S. and Israel) are showing their malicious intent to the whole world,” she said.

The strike killed the library’s caretaker and a volunteer with the Iranian Red Crescent first responders, according to Jaafar Mohammadi, the provincial director of cultural and Islamic guidance.

He said poor people had received free treatment at the clinic and students had made use of the library that housed more than 35,000 books, including antique manuscripts.

He said he did not know why the complex was targeted.

“Iran wanted to negotiate for peace with (U.S. President Donald) Trump, but Trump responded with war,” Mohammadi said. “He started the war, but we will definitely be the victorious side.”

Pedetrians walk by a destroyed building within the Grand Hosseiniyeh, with the mosque visible in the background, which officials at the site say was hit by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes Tuesday, in Zanjan, Iran, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Life goes on in much of Iran despite fear and uncertaintyThe U.S. and Israel have carried out thousands of strikes across the country, and Trump has threatened to bomb Iran “ back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” Over the weekend, he reiterated a Monday deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for oil and gas.

Iran’s surviving leaders have remained defiant and in control, rejecting what they say are unreasonable U.S. peace proposals. Israel has given no indication it plans to let up on its strikes, and has called on Iranians to overthrow their leaders.

Even as the war generates global turmoil — and fear and anxiety within Iran — daily life goes on.

In city after city on the road to Tehran, AP reporters saw normal traffic, businesses open and people walking the streets. A restaurant served Iranian delicacies like grilled lamb and rice, barley soup and saffron drinks as R.E.M.’s “Losing my religion” played on loudspeakers.

Many women could be seen going about their day without wearing the theocracy’s mandatory head covering, the enforcement of which has eased in recent years.

The team passed through two checkpoints on the approach to Tehran without being stopped.

Destroyed government buildings and police stations in Tehran
The city was eerily quiet after midnight. There had been heavy airstrikes on the mountains overlooking the capital the previous night.

Tehran is on the front lines, having seen wave after wave of strikes that the U.S. and Israel say are aimed at the military and internal security forces. Authorities in Iran say over 1,900 people have been killed. It’s unclear how many were soldiers or civilians.

A truck loaded with logs and other vehicles drive along a road toward Tehran near the Turkish border on the outskirts of Razi, northwestern Iran, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

The AP reporters saw several government buildings and police stations that had been destroyed. They passed a number of checkpoints operated by plainclothes Basij, an internal security force, and uniformed members of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

They were stopped once and asked to open the car and show press cards before being waved onward.

Fuel is heavily subsidized, such that a gallon (4 liters) of gasoline costs around 15 U.S. cents. But people are only allowed to purchase around 5 gallons (20 liters) at a time. There were no signs of gas lines.

Back in Zanjan, Mohamoud Maasoumi, a retired soldier, said the conflict with the U.S. — “the world’s arrogance” — goes back to a 1953 CIA-backed coup that is seared into the minds of many Iranians. He expressed hope that Iran’s leaders would defend the country.

“The enemy sees that we are not ever succumbing,” he said.

A picture of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hangs on the side of the road in the outskirts of Tehran, Iran, early Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

In an X post Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed the determination of his government to pursue all the war aims of Operation Roaring Lion until they are achieved, without mentioning the ongoing talks between the U.S. and Iran to reach a ceasefire deal.

In his statement, he mentioned two of today’s successful strikes. The first was the elimination of Majid Khademi, head of the Intelligence Division in the Revolutionary Guards. Khademi had only just stepped into the role, following the elimination of his predecessor. The second was the elimination of Asghar Bakri, commander of Unit 840 in the Quds Force. Bakri had helped orchestrate attacks against Jews and Israelis worldwide.

“Whoever acts to murder our citizens, whoever directs terror against the State of Israel, whoever builds the Iranian axis of evil — their blood is upon their head,” the prime minister wrote. “We are acting with strength and determination — we will reach everyone who seeks to harm us.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted this image on his X account. Majid Khademi is on the left.

“We will continue with full force, on all fronts, until the threat is removed and all the war’s objectives are achieved,” he declared.

Upon confirming earlier Monday the elimination of Khademi, Defense Minister Israel Katz said, “The terrorist regime in Iran continues to launch missiles at the Israeli home front, killing and harming Israeli civilians.”

“The Revolutionary Guards fire at civilians, and we eliminate the terrorist leaders,” he added.

Meanwhile, Iran has struck a defiant tone amid negotiations that call for an immediate truce.

“We have formulated our own responses,” Esmail Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters Monday.

“Iran does not hesitate to clearly express what it considers its legitimate demands, and doing so should not be interpreted as a sign of compromise, but rather as a reflection of its confidence in defending its positions,” he said.

Two Republican election officials say they expect legal challenges to succeed against President Donald Trump’s executive order placing new limits on mail-in voting, raising doubts about whether the policy will withstand scrutiny in court.

Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt and former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer both indicated that lawsuits already filed against the order are likely to prevail.

Speaking on ABC News’ “This Week,” Schmidt emphasized the importance of clarity and consistency in election procedures. “We want voters to know that the election is going to be free, fair, safe, and secure, and that everyone knows what the rules are prior to going into this,” Schmidt said. “So confusion is never a positive thing unless you are seeking to sow distrust in the outcome of an election,” Schmidt said.

Trump’s executive order calls for the federal government to assemble lists of verified U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and to use federal databases to assist state officials in confirming voter eligibility.

The directive also instructs the U.S. Postal Service to deliver ballots only to individuals listed on each state’s approved mail-in voting rolls and mandates that election-related records be retained for a period of five years.

Opposition to the measure has quickly mounted. A group of Democratic state attorneys general announced Friday that they had filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston challenging the legality of the order. The case is one of several brought by Democratic organizations and voting rights groups seeking to block its implementation.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is also involved in litigation against the order, said the courts are likely to act swiftly. “We’re going to work as hard as we can to make sure that this is a free and fair election,” Jeffries said on “This Week.” “That executive order is unlawful and unconstitutional. We’ve already filed litigation, and we expect that it will be declared so in short order by the courts,” Jeffries said.

Richer, who oversaw elections in Arizona’s Maricopa County for several years, described the executive order as unnecessary, noting that his state already incorporates many of the safeguards the administration is seeking to implement nationwide. Arizona has “some of the underlying features that President Trump aspires to have in all elections,” Richer said. “While I agree with some of the elements in the executive order and some of the aspirations, the form does matter.”

The White House, however, has defended the move, maintaining that the order is designed to bolster election security and ensure that only eligible citizens are able to vote.

A federal appeals court in New York has reinstated a $655.5 million damages judgment against the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority for financing and orchestrating terrorist attacks during the Second Intifada, capping a more than two-decade legal odyssey that survivors and victims’ families refused to abandon.

The ruling reinstates a 2015 jury verdict in Sokolow v. Palestinian Authority, which had been thrown out by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 2016 on jurisdictional grounds and left in limbo after the Supreme Court declined to intervene in 2018. Its revival was made possible by a May 2025 Supreme Court decision that established US courts do have jurisdiction to hear terrorism claims against the Palestinian Authority for financing attacks on American citizens, even when those attacks occurred on foreign soil.

The case dates to 2004, when Shurat HaDin — Israel Law Center — filed suit on behalf of American victims and their families under the Anti-Terrorism Act, a 1992 statute allowing US nationals to seek civil damages for acts of international terrorism. The complaint alleged that the PLO and PA financed and directed seven separate attacks in Jerusalem between January 2001 and February 2004.

Among the plaintiffs are families who lost children in the bombing of the Hebrew University cafeteria, the Goldberg family, whose father was killed in the No. 19 bus bombing in Jerusalem, and survivors including Mark Sokolow, Jonathan and Alan Bauer, and Shaina Gold, who were wounded in separate attacks on Jaffa Road.

A jury found the PLO liable in February 2015 and awarded $218.5 million in damages. Under a treble-damages provision of the Anti-Terrorism Act, that figure was automatically tripled to $655.5 million.

The PA appealed, and the Second Circuit vacated the verdict the following year, ruling the court lacked jurisdiction over a foreign entity for acts committed abroad. The case has been working its way back through the system ever since.

The legal landscape shifted last year when the Supreme Court ruled in a separate but related case brought by Miriam Fuld, whose husband Ari Fuld was stabbed and killed by a 17-year-old Palestinian terrorist outside a shopping center in 2018. That ruling established that courts could hear terrorism claims against the PA, clearing the precedential hurdle that had blocked the Sokolow case from proceeding.

The 2019 Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act also bolstered the plaintiffs’ position, establishing that foreign entities that make payments connected to terrorist activity or maintain activities tied to the United States may be deemed to have consented to US court jurisdiction.

Despite the size of the judgment, collecting it will not be easy. US courts have no direct mechanism to compel the PA or PLO to pay, and neither entity is expected to comply voluntarily.

Shurat HaDin said it plans to seek enforcement through the Israeli legal system, citing treaty arrangements between Washington and Jerusalem. If successful, the judgment could eventually affect PA tax revenues, a significant pressure point given that Israel collects customs duties on the Authority’s behalf.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

More than a month into the war, one of the most consequential questions facing Israeli and American planners remains unanswered: how many ballistic missiles does Iran actually have left?

The IDF’s official position is that Iran retains several hundred ballistic missiles from an original stockpile of approximately 2,500. But IDF sources have acknowledged to The Jerusalem Post that no one really knows for certain.

The uncertainty broke into the open after Channel 12 reported, citing IDF Air Force Col. “T,” that Iran still possesses more than 1,000 ballistic missiles — directly contradicting the military’s own prior estimates. When the Jerusalem Post pressed the IDF on the discrepancy, the military initially stood by its lower estimate before conceding that the true number remains unknown.

The gap between those two figures — several hundred versus more than one thousand — is not a rounding error. It is the difference between an adversary in its final chapter and one with significant destructive capacity remaining.

At the heart of the uncertainty is a question that neither Israel nor the United States has been able to resolve cleanly: how many of the missiles buried under rubble from Israeli strikes are genuinely destroyed, and how many are temporarily inaccessible but ultimately salvageable?

In some cases, Iran has developed specialized bulldozer teams capable of clearing caved-in missile silos within less than a day. Missiles recovered through such efforts would not only remain part of Iran’s long-term arsenal — they could potentially be made ready for use in the short term.

Missile launchers present an additional layer of complexity. The IDF has said roughly 70 to 80 percent of Iran’s launchers have been put out of commission for at least some period of time, with approximately half of those destroyed outright and the other half buried and neutralized — for now. How long they remain neutralized depends on Iran’s recovery capabilities.

The confusion is compounded by inconsistent public messaging. Both the U.S. and Israel have at various points claimed Iran’s missile capabilities were reduced by 90 percent, yet Iran’s actual firing rate has temporarily spiked upward on multiple occasions since those claims were made, before declining again.

Despite the uncertainty, several relatively firm data points help frame the question. Iran has fired more than 500 ballistic missiles at Israel since the war began. Gulf states have collectively reported absorbing approximately 1,300 Iranian missile strikes. Iran’s daily launch rate fell below 20 missiles per day by the fourth day of the war and has since declined further.

Starting from the IDF’s baseline figure of 2,500 missiles at the war’s outset, simple arithmetic suggests Iran has fired roughly 1,800 missiles at Israel and Gulf targets combined, leaving fewer than 700 even if Israeli strikes had destroyed nothing. Factor in several hundred missiles destroyed in strikes, and the official estimate of a few hundred remaining becomes mathematically plausible.

But that math rests on the 2,500 baseline — and that number has already been revised once. The IDF assessed Iran’s starting stockpile at 2,500 missiles as of June 2025, then quietly revised the figure upward to 3,000 missiles months later. If the original baseline was again an undercount, every calculation built on top of it shifts accordingly.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

NEW YORK (VINnews/Rabbi Yair Hoffman – A friend in Yerushalayim was one of the people that discovered the real reason why the Volozhin Yeshiva closed down.  He did so by thoroughly going through the Russian archives during the period of Tsarist rule. He discovered that it could be traced to tension between supporters of the Netziv zatzal and those of Rav Chaim Soloveitchik zatzal.

Much of the Torah world, nowadays, has adopted the remarkable insights and methodology of Rav Chaim in how they understand and dissect Torah concepts.

It may, however, also pay for the world to begin to heed the prescience of the Netziv – when it comes to his remarkable insights about dangers that we face in the world.

It seems that Sam Altman may have stumbled onto something.  But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Let’s begin with how the Torah describes the generation of the Tower of Babel:

“And the entire earth had one language and unified words… and they said: Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top reaches the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves.” (Bereishis 11:1,4)

The Netziv — Rav Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, Rosh Yeshiva of Volozhin and one of the greatest Torah authorities of the 19th century — in his Ha’amek Davar on this passage makes a striking observation. He explains that the sin of the generation of Babel was not the building itself, nor even the ambition. The sin was the totalitarian impulse behind it — the desire to use their shared technological and organizational power to centralize control, eliminate individuality, and ensure that no one could opt out or think differently. The Netziv notes that Hashem’s response — scattering them and diversifying their languages — was not merely a punishment but a correction: restoring the pluralism and diversity of human society that the builders had sought to destroy.

The Netziv writes (Ha’amek Davar, Bereishis 11:4):

_“_שלא יתפזרו על פני כל הארץ, רצו שיהיו כולם תחת ממשלה אחת ומחשבה אחת”

“So that they would not scatter across the face of the earth — they wanted everyone to be under one authority and one way of thinking.”

He explains that this concentration of power and thought — using the greatest technology of their age to enforce uniformity — was the core of their sin. Hashem responded by building diversity back into human civilization.

The parallel to artificial intelligence concentrated in the hands of a small number of companies, governments, or individuals — capable of shaping what billions of people see, think, and do — is a precise structural echo of what the Netziv identified as the danger of Babel.

With this Torah foundation in place — the danger of using great technological power to concentrate control rather than spread blessing — we can now turn to what OpenAI itself is warning the world about.

THE WARNING

OpenAI — the company that makes ChatGPT — just released a 13-page report saying that artificial intelligence – in its latest and newest wave – is about to change the world more dramatically than electricity, the car, or the internet ever did. They’re calling the next stage “superintelligence” — AI systems capable of outperforming the smartest humans even when they are assisted by AI.

They want to start a national conversation now, before things get out of hand, about how to make sure this technology helps everyone — not just billionaires and big companies.

The Two Big Goals

The document is organized around two main ideas:

1. Building an Open Economy — meaning: make sure regular people get a piece of the pie.
2. Building a Resilient Society — meaning: make sure things don’t go terribly wrong.

The Dangers They’re Warning About

This is where the Netziv’s warning from Babel becomes very relevant. But before listing the dangers, there is a Midrash that speaks directly to how we should respond to danger — and it comes from Yaakov Avinu.

Yaakov Avinu’s Three-Part Strategy: A Model for Facing Existential Threats

When Yaakov learned that his brother Eisav was approaching with four hundred armed men, the Torah tells us:

“And Yaakov was very afraid and distressed, and he divided the people who were with him… into two camps.” (Bereishis 32:8)

The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 76:3) teaches that Yaakov prepared for the confrontation with Eisav in three ways: tefillah (prayer), doron (gifts and diplomacy), and milchamah (preparing for battle).

Rashi on this passage codifies this as a permanent lesson — that when facing a serious threat, a person must simultaneously pray to Hashem, attempt to make peace and find common ground, and take practical defensive measures. Relying on only one of these is insufficient.

All three must work together.

This is precisely the framework that responsible AI governance demands. Prayer and moral grounding (tefillah) — remembering that human beings are not the ultimate authors of history and that technology must be guided by true Torah values beyond profit. Diplomacy and cooperation (doron) — the international cooperation, information sharing, and public-private collaboration that OpenAI’s report  is calling for. And practical defensive preparation (milchamah) — the auditing systems, safety regulations, containment playbooks, and guardrails that must be built now, before the threat fully arrives.

Yaakov did not wait until Eisav was at the door. He prepared in advance, on multiple fronts simultaneously. That is the model OpenAI is — perhaps without knowing it — advocating for.

Here are the specific dangers the document identifies:

Jobs disappearing. Frontier systems have advanced from supporting tasks that take people minutes to complete, to tasks that take them hours to complete. If progress continues, we can expect systems to be capable of carrying out projects that currently take people months. That means accountants, paralegals, writers, coders, and many others could find their jobs automated away — fast.

Wealth concentrating in a few hands. Without thoughtful policies, AI could widen inequality by compounding advantages for those already positioned to capture the upside while communities that begin with fewer resources fall further behind, excluded from new tools, new industries, and new opportunities. This is precisely the Netziv’s warning from Babel brought to life.

Misuse by bad actors. Some systems may be misused for cyber or biological harm. Imagine a terrorist using AI to design a new disease, or a hostile government using AI to hack critical infrastructure. These are concerns the document raises directly.

AI acting against human wishes. AI systems may act in ways that are misaligned with human intent or operate beyond meaningful human oversight. In plain English: we may build something so smart that we can no longer control it.

Governments using AI to crush freedom. There is a real risk of governments or institutions deploying AI in ways that undermine values. A government with AI surveillance tools could monitor every citizen, suppress dissent, and eliminate opposition — faster and more thoroughly than any dictator in history ever could. 

Harm to young people. AI could create new pressures on social and emotional well-being, including for young people, if deployed without adequate safeguards.

What They’re Proposing — Yaakov’s Three Paths in Practice

Corresponding to Yaakov’s three-part strategy, Altman’s proposals fall naturally into three categories:

Tefillah — connecting to a Hashem and the morality of a Higher Power. OpenAI calls for creating structured ways for public input so that alignment isn’t defined only by engineers or executives behind closed doors. Someone has to ask the deeper question: what kind of world are we trying to build? That is ultimately a moral and spiritual question, not a technical one.

Doron — diplomacy and shared prosperity. OpenAI proposes creating a Public Wealth Fund that provides every citizen — including those not invested in financial markets — with a stake in AI-driven economic growth. This in itself may be dangerous too – a form of socialism or communism that must be carefully watched. They also call for treating access to AI as foundational for participation in the modern economy, similar to mass efforts to increase global literacy, or to make sure that electricity and the internet reach remote parts of the globe. Again – this too can be quite dangerous.

Milchamah — practical defense and preparation. Altman’s document calls for developing and testing coordinated playbooks to contain dangerous AI systems once they have been released into the world, as well as strengthening auditing institutions and establishing international information-sharing frameworks so that dangerous capabilities can be identified and contained before they cause irreversible harm.

The Pasuk in Yechezkel

There is one final idea that may speak to the topic. In Yechezkel 33:6, Hashem tells the Navi:

“But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the shofar, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes a life — he is taken for his iniquity.” (Yechezkel 33:6)

The Radak in his commentary explains that the tzofeh — the watchman — is not just a military role – it is a moral role. Anyone who has the ability to see danger coming and the platform to warn others carries an obligation to speak up. Silence in the face of foreseeable harm is itself a form of responsibility.

The Netziv’s warning from Babel, Yaakov’s three-part strategy before Eisav, and the RaDaK’s teich of the pasuk in Yechezkel all converge on a single thought: great power demands great preparation, great moral seriousness, and great humility. Hashem built diversity and pluralism into human civilization for a reason. Any technology — however brilliant — that threatens to undo that diversity and concentrate power in the hands of a few is walking down the road of Babel. The question for our generation is whether we will learn that lesson — or repeat it.

The author can be reached at [email protected]

President Donald Trump indicated Sunday that deploying U.S. ground forces in Iran remains a possibility if Tehran refuses to agree to terms that include reopening the Strait of Hormuz, underscoring escalating pressure as negotiations appear uncertain.

Speaking to The Hill, Trump declined to rule out the use of ground troops when pressed on the issue. “Normal people would make a deal. Smart people would make a deal,” Trump said. “If they were smart, they would make a deal.”

Earlier in the day, the president issued a stark warning to Iran, giving its leadership a 48-hour window to either reach an agreement or reopen the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz, a vital route through which about 20% of the world’s oil supply flows.

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one in Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the … Strait, you crazy …., or you’ll be living in Hell, JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

The warning followed another post the day before in which Trump emphasized the narrowing timeline for a resolution. “Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out, 48 hours before all Hell will rain down on them. Glory be to GOD!”

Trump also made clear that, absent an agreement, potential U.S. targets would not be limited, suggesting a broad range of infrastructure could be struck if diplomacy fails.

In a separate, brief post Sunday, Trump added to the tension with a cryptic message: “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time.” The White House has not yet clarified the meaning of the statement.

While continuing to issue strong warnings, Trump has at times offered a more optimistic outlook on the prospects for a deal. In remarks to Fox News on Sunday, he suggested an agreement could be reached as soon as Monday, while telling Axios that a resolution might come by Tuesday, even as he maintained a hardline stance.

“There is a good chance, but if they don’t make a deal, I am blowing up everything over there,” he told Axios.

Last week, Trump projected that the confrontation with Iran could conclude within two to three weeks, aligning with an earlier administration estimate of a four- to six-week timeframe following the outbreak of hostilities on February 28.

However, the potential introduction of U.S. ground forces could complicate those expectations. While many Republicans have backed the administration’s approach, some have expressed reservations about committing American troops on the ground in Iran, according to The Hill.

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The Israel Defense Forces have struck Iran’s largest petrochemical facility in Asaluyeh, responsible for about 50% of the country’s petrochemical production, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday, following a previous attack on the second major site.

The two facilities, which together account for about 85% of Iran’s petrochemical exports, “have been taken out of use and are not functioning,” Katz said in a statement.

IMG_2856

“This is a severe economic blow amounting to tens of billions of dollars to the Iranian regime,” he added.

Katz described the petrochemical industry as “a central engine in financing the activities” of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its military buildup. He said the IDF has been instructed to continue striking with full force the national infrastructure of what he called “the Iranian terror regime.”

“The Iranian terror regime will discover that continued aggression against Israel and the cowardly and criminal firing at Israeli civilians will lead to a deepening of the economic and strategic damage it pays and to the collapse of its capabilities,” Katz said.

The comments come amid ongoing exchanges between Israel and Iran, with Israeli strikes targeting key infrastructure as Iran continues missile attacks on Israeli civilian areas. Katz has previously warned that Iran would “pay painful prices” as long as the attacks persist.f564d7

No immediate confirmation or casualty figures were available from Iranian officials.

A former hostage held by Hamas in Gaza has shared a powerful and deeply moving account of his captivity, describing moments of intense suffering alongside unwavering emunah and clear experiences of hashgacha pratis, in an interview with the Hidabroot Channel.

Rom Braslavski spoke candidly about one of the darkest points during his captivity, when he grappled with thoughts of ending his life, but ultimately held back due to his understanding of Torah values. “I had a suicide mission. I told myself that if the war ends and I’m still here, I won’t commit suicide, because suicide is forbidden, but I will make a suicide party.”

He described a chilling incident in which he briefly had access to a weapon belonging to one of the terrorists. “I grabbed the Kalashnikov, I cocked it. I had about four minutes alone with the gun, I just got cold feet; I couldn’t continue.”

Throughout his time in captivity, Braslavski said he endured severe hardship and repeatedly found himself on the brink of death, yet saw clear signs of Yad Hashem guiding him. “From October 7th until my release, I experienced with my own eyes divine providence. I saw death before my eyes, I even experienced clinical death, and the moment you are saved time and again, I’m alone, and I’m beaten, and I stand in front of a wall, without eyes, without legs, without arms, nothing, you can’t do anything, a hostage.”

Despite everything, he emphasized that his emunah remained strong throughout. “I know that G-d is here with me, and I know that there is a reason for these beatings. That is the price I accept on myself.”

He also reflected on how he observed Yom Tov under impossible conditions, choosing not to eat chometz on Pesach despite extreme hunger and pressure from his captors. “I decided not to eat pitas. When I told him that, he refused, he said I had to eat that pita and a half, and that he wasn’t asking me. What I did was, I was with a Thai hostage. When he brought the food, the Arab would leave, and I would give my pitas to the Thai.”

Asked how he managed to survive with so little sustenance, Braslavski answered simply: “I wasn’t really nourished. I lived on a plate of rice, maybe a bit of beans.”

His account stands as a powerful testament to the strength of emunah and mesirus nefesh even under the most unimaginable circumstances.

WASHINGTON D.C (VINnews) – President Donald Trump will hold a news conference on Iran in the White House Briefing Room at 1 p.m. ET Monday, accompanied by military officials, officials said.

The change to the formal briefing room setting comes in response to strong demand from the press corps, according to an announcement shared Monday.

“Due to popular demand from the press, President Trump’s news conference tomorrow will now take place in the White House Briefing Room. 1PM ET,” the statement read.

The session is expected to focus on Iran, with military leaders joining Trump to address recent developments. Details about specific topics or participants were not immediately released.

Trump has frequently used White House appearances to discuss foreign policy and national security matters. The briefing room format allows for direct questioning from reporters following any opening remarks.

This will mark one of the administration’s first major formal press events addressing Iran policy in the new term.

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Dr. Hai Eitan Cohen Yanarocak, a Turkey expert from the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, explains a series of developments that he describes as concerning in relations between Turkey and Israel.

Dr. Yanarocak says that he writes quarterly reports for the “Tamarur Politography” organization and monitors Turkish media regarding anything related to the State of Israel.

“I focus in my reports on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but around this issue we see various additional developments. I’ll refer to several points in the Israeli-Turkish context: one of the most prominent findings in the report is President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s consistent policy of delegitimization against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and against the State of Israel.”

“He refers to Israel as a ‘murder gang,’ and to Netanyahu as a ‘genocidal murderer,’ instead of using professional terms like the State of Israel or Prime Minister Netanyahu. He labels Israel as a threat to Turkey’s territorial integrity and accuses it of adopting a ‘messianic policy,’ claiming it seeks to expand its territory. From his perspective, Israel is declaring war on Iran, entering territories in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria, and says: ‘They will finish there, and we are next in line.’”

“We see multiple arenas of friction—the Syrian arena, the Horn of Africa, and the alliance between Israel, Greece, and Cyprus. For example, Azerbaijan functioned as a positive actor trying to curb the deterioration between Israel and Turkey, but recently it seems it is not succeeding.”

“Turkey’s policy in the Middle East is based on strategic alliances with Arab states, and recently there has been talk there about a ‘Middle Eastern union’ that would also include Iran. They are trying to form a pan-Islamist bloc aimed at deterring Israel.”

He continues:“In the last quarter, they expanded the economic boycott and stopped issuing EUR-MED certificates, which previously allowed importing Turkish goods via Europe. Israeli companies could import Turkish products through Europe without Turkish approval. The Turks tightened this and made exports to Israel much more difficult and sophisticated.”

Focusing on religious tensions, Dr. Yanarocak says: “We also need to look at what’s happening on the Temple Mount. Following Israel’s decision to close the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (due to the war), Turkish discourse ignores the Jewish angle, that the Western Wall is also closed. They only highlight that Al-Aqsa Mosque is closed, turning it into headlines and fueling religious escalation against Israel.”

“Recently, there have been very extreme statements by Turkish officials and members of parliament, saying they are ‘ready to sacrifice 300,000 soldiers to wipe Israel off the map.’ This is very concerning. We also see that due to legislation such as the death penalty for terrorists, there is a clear anti-Zionist and antisemitic wave in Turkey.”

“We see that the Turkish state channel is producing propaganda against Israel, videos supporting the ‘Sumud flotilla’ or Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida, who was killed by the IDF. Erdoğan encourages civilian initiatives such as ‘The Gaza Tribunal.’ There is a developing legal struggle against Israel, with efforts to collect ‘evidence.’”

“Turkey is increasingly using the term ‘guarantor state,’ suggesting it provides protection for Palestinians in Gaza, and that nothing can be done in Gaza without its approval. Turkish officials communicate this message to their public, that their government is ‘protecting’ Hamas and the Palestinians.”

“We are even seeing public meetings with senior Hamas officials. This is not just rhetoric. Recently, the Shin Bet exposed another terror cell in the West Bank whose roots trace back to Hamas cells operating in Turkey. This doesn’t necessarily mean Turkey directs them, but it does mean it ignores Hamas activity on its soil against Israel, which I find very problematic.”

In conclusion, he says:
“Until now, we haven’t seen all these developments together. There are many worrying trends. This is an escalation. Every quarter I see another level of escalation, and I don’t see room for rehabilitation. There is deepening hostility, increasing personalization against the prime minister, and delegitimization mainly against the State of Israel, reflected in social media and the press.”

Additional details of an exceptionally severe security case were released for publication on Monday by the Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court at the request of the Yisrael Hayom media outlet.

The case involves several Israeli citizens who acted at the direction of Iranian handlers to manufacture explosive materials during the course of Operation Roaring Lion and even carried out tests on the explosives they produced.

The investigation, led by the Shin Bet and Lahav 433, is considered by security officials to represent a significant escalation in espionage activity on behalf of Iran—particularly as the incidents occurred in recent weeks amid the ongoing war.

The court decided to partially grant the request to lift the gag order on the case after reviewing the parties’ arguments and balancing the principle of open proceedings and the public interest against the potential harm to state security resulting from publication. Accordingly, the gag order was lifted on general information about the case while identifying details about the investigation and the suspects remain confidential.

About a week ago, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in closed-door discussions that Israeli citizens who collaborated with Iran—especially during a time of existential war—must be dealt with severely and using all available means, describing the phenomenon as extremely grave.

Yisrael Hayom reported that these remarks are already being translated into action, and that the matter is currently being handled by the Shin Bet, which has begun preparing procedures to revoke the citizenship of convicted spies.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

IDF forces eliminated Majid Khademi, the head of intelligence in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in an airstrike in Tehran in the early hours of Monday morning, the IDF announced.

Iranian state media confirmed Khademi’s death. Khademi, who was considered one of the three most senior figures in the IRGC, had entered his position only several months ago after his predecessor was eliminated in a previous strike.

“The Israeli Air Force, guided by precise intelligence from Military Intelligence, carried out a strike overnight in Tehran and eliminated Majid Khatam-Hosseini Khademi, the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence organization,” the IDF stated.

“Khademi was one of the most senior commanders in the Revolutionary Guards and had accumulated extensive military and security experience over the years. He was appointed to his position following the elimination of Mohammad Kazemi in Operation Roaring Lion. As part of his role, he was responsible for gathering intelligence used to formulate situational assessments for senior regime officials during Operation Roaring Lion. Khademi was a key figure in the war campaign, and the intelligence he gathered was used to advance and execute terror operations.”

“In addition, Khademi was involved in promoting terror activities against Israel and Jewish targets worldwide, and took part in attempts to strike targets tied to the U.S. He was also responsible for monitoring Iranian citizens as part of suppressing internal protests in Iran.”

“His elimination joins dozens of other senior commanders of the Iranian terror regime who have been killed during the operation, and constitutes another significant blow to the Revolutionary Guards’ command-and-control systems and their ability to conduct terror activities against Israel and countries worldwide.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

Two people were injured in an Iranian cluster missile attack on central Israel in the early hours of Monday morning, which led to 15 separate impact sites, including in the cities of Petach Tikva, Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Kiryat Ono, and Bnei Brak.

A 34-year-old woman in Petach Tikva was seriously injured while in her car, which was struck by interceptor shrapnel, piercing the windshield and striking her upper body. MDA paramedics treated her at the scene and evacuated her to Rabin Medical Center in the city.

MDA paramedic Noam Dahan said, “We saw a vehicle with shattered windows, and inside was a conscious woman suffering from severe injuries caused by interception fragments. We provided life-saving medical treatment and evacuated her to the hospital in serious condition.”

Meanwhile, firefighters operated at an impact site in Petach Tikva, where shrapnel caused several vehicles to catch fire and damaged nearby buildings

Security forces emphasized that the large number of impact sites is due to the nature of the cluster missiles fired by Iran, which disperse multiple components and cause damage across several locations simultaneously.

A residential building and school were hit in Tel Aviv, but baruch Hashem, only one person, a man in his 30s, was lightly injured. MDA paramedics treated him at the scene and evacuated him to the hospital.

MDA

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

by Shira Miller

In a dramatic demonstration of American military capability, President Trump celebrated a daring rescue of an injured Air Force colonel from deep inside Iranian territory — a mission that showcased the extraordinary reach and precision of U.S. special operations forces and the CIA working in concert.

Rather than being rattled by the episode, the president drew confidence from America’s demonstrated ability to project power into the heart of a hostile nation and bring its people home safely.

True to his reputation for directness, President Trump sent an unambiguous message to Iranian leadership on Sunday: open the Strait of Hormuz, or face consequences. Critics called the language colorful; supporters recognized it as the kind of no-nonsense communication that has repeatedly forced adversaries to take American resolve seriously. While political opponents were clutching pearls over his choice of words, Trump was focused on results — a hallmark of his leadership style.

The president has made absolutely clear that the United States will not allow Iran to hold global energy markets hostage. His willingness to name specific targets and specific deadlines reflects a commander-in-chief who means what he says — a sharp contrast to decades of American administrations that issued empty warnings that adversaries learned to ignore.

Senator Chris Murphy criticized the president’s tone. But General Kenneth McKenzie Jr., the retired head of U.S. Central Command with decades of real military experience, offered a more informed assessment on CBS’s Face the Nation: “We know from history that leadership in Iran responds when existential pressure is applied to the regime.” McKenzie affirmed that Trump’s pressure campaign represents a historically grounded strategy for bringing Iran to the table on American terms.

The president’s diplomatic instincts have also been on display. He correctly identified early signs of fracture within the Iranian leadership structure, noting that its new leaders appeared more open to negotiation than their predecessors. He activated multiple back-channel diplomatic tracks simultaneously — through Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt — reflecting a sophisticated, multi-front approach to conflict resolution. A meeting between Vice President JD Vance and Iranian parliamentary leadership in Islamabad remains a live possibility.

Trump’s strategic vision extends beyond the immediate conflict. His proposal for an international coalition to help maintain freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz reflects an understanding that burden-sharing — not unilateral American commitment — should be the model for sustaining regional stability. That roughly 40 nations gathered in Paris to discuss the strait’s reopening reflects how thoroughly Trump has internationalized the issue.

The president has also shown he is thinking about the full spectrum of Iranian leverage points. Kharg Island, the hub of Iranian oil exports, and the uranium stockpile at Isfahan represent strategic prizes that could fundamentally alter the region’s security landscape. Trump has spoken about both with the confidence of a leader who has already seen bold operations succeed — including Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025, which successfully destroyed three Iranian nuclear sites, and the remarkable extraction of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, once considered untouchable in his own country.

Those prior successes were not accidents. They reflect a president who has built, over time, a tightly coordinated national security team aligned around clear objectives and willing to execute difficult missions. Where earlier administrations hesitated, Trump acts.

Thirty-five days into the conflict, the president continues to press Iran with maximum resolve, offering a clear off-ramp — negotiate seriously, or face escalating consequences. History suggests that sustained, credible pressure of this kind is precisely what moves intransigent regimes. President Trump appears to understand this better than most.

Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled that the number of mispallelim permitted to daven at the Kosel may be increased to 100 at any given time, up from the previous limit of 50, while also issuing a conditional order and scheduling a further hearing for Thursday, stating that the earlier discussion “was not exhausted.”

The upcoming hearing will require the state to explain whether current security policies regarding access to the makomos hakedoshim properly balance safety concerns with the right to freedom of tefillah and religion.

The ruling comes amid ongoing restrictions from the Home Front Command, which generally cap gatherings at 50 people. However, in a separate decision, the court allowed a protest in Habima Square in Tel Aviv to proceed with up to 600 participants, creating a sharp contrast between limits placed on demonstrations and those placed on tefillah.

During earlier proceedings, Yonatan Mozes of the High Court petitions department outlined the state’s position, noting that a professional inspection had been conducted that morning to explore possible leniencies. He said experts concluded that the number could be raised to 100 individuals, including staff, based on the capacity of two protected areas at the site, calculated according to a density of 2.5 people per square meter.

Justice Ruth Ronen questioned how many of those permitted would be staff members, but Mozes responded that he did not have that information. He also explained that regarding the Kosel tunnels, the Home Front Command maintains there is concern over blast impact and potential structural collapse, even while recognizing the importance of tefillah.

Justice Yitzchak Amit addressed the tension between competing considerations, noting that while the Home Front Command carries responsibility for safety, broader administrative law principles and the realities of an ongoing war must also be taken into account. He described the issue as one of balance across different locations, emphasizing that freedom of religion is a central value. He added, “I watched the live broadcast of Birkas Kohanim, and it was embarrassing to see the Kosel, the very soul of the Jewish people, standing empty.”

A representative for the petitioners argued that in the past, mispallelim were directed into the Kosel tunnels during sirens, calling into question current claims of danger. He said that Home Front Command guidelines can vary depending on circumstances and suggested that a framework should be developed to allow for broader participation. “The easiest position to take is to forbid,” he said, adding that calculated risks should be weighed alongside the importance of tefillah.

A Georgia Democratic state Senate candidate was left with a face as red as charoses after her Passover greeting — published in the Atlanta Jewish Times, no less — featured a photograph of challah.

Nathalie Kanani, founder of a personal injury law firm and candidate for the Georgia state Senate, said that the photo was “mistakenly included” in the Passover message, calling it “an oversight that should not have happened.”

“My intent was to honor our Jewish neighbors and friends,” she said, adding that she believes in “meeting those moments with grace and using them to bring people of different cultures together, not tear them apart.” She also noted that the content was produced by a campaign consultant — while taking full responsibility for it — and pledged that “stronger review processes” are now being implemented.

The consultant in question has not commented publicly, and presumably is spending the week learning the difference between challah and matzah.

Esther Panitch, the only Jewish member of the Georgia state legislature, confirmed that Kanani had reached out to her directly — a gesture of goodwill that, unlike the original post, did not involve any baked goods.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

HOUSTON (VINnews) – NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Sunday the odds of eventually finding evidence of alien life are “pretty high.”

Isaacman, a billionaire private astronaut appointed by President Trump to lead the space agency, made the remarks during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” with host Jake Tapper.

“It goes to the heart of many things we do at NASA,” Isaacman said. “Our job is to unlock the secrets of the universe and one of those questions is: are we alone?”

He added: “I would say the odds that we will find something at some point to suggest that we are not alone are pretty high.”

Isaacman noted he has traveled to space twice and has not encountered any signs of extraterrestrial life or evidence of visits to Earth by intelligent beings. But he pointed to the vast scale of the universe — with an estimated 2 trillion galaxies — as reason for optimism about discovering signs of life.

The comments come days after the launch of the Artemis II mission, which sent a crewed spacecraft around the moon. Isaacman has linked the search for life to NASA’s broader scientific and exploration goals, including planned Mars sample return missions. He has previously expressed roughly 90% confidence that evidence of past microbial life on Mars will be found once samples are analyzed on Earth.

Isaacman’s appointment and the ongoing Artemis program have drawn attention amid renewed focus on U.S. space efforts under the Trump administration. No definitive evidence of extraterrestrial life has been confirmed, but NASA continues to fund astrobiology research targeting potentially habitable environments in the solar system and beyond.

Astronauts aboard NASA’s Artemis II mission shared a striking image of Earth from deep space as they approached their planned flyby of the Moon, offering a rare glimpse of the planet as a thin crescent against the darkness.

The photo, released by NASA on Sunday, shows only a sliver of Earth illuminated through a window of the Orion spacecraft as the crew continues its historic journey beyond low-Earth orbit.

“One last look at Earth before we reach the Moon,” NASA said in a post on X.

“This view of the Earth was captured on April 5, the fourth day of the Artemis II mission, from inside the Orion spacecraft. The four astronauts will reach their closest approach of the Moon tomorrow, April 6.”

Mission Specialist Christina Koch said the astronauts found a creative way to celebrate while in orbit.

“We wanted to take a minute to commemorate the holiday that we have at this time of year, something that many religions and many cultures hold dear,” Koch said. “It’s a time of emotions such as joy, as well as solemness, honoring what’s going on both in our world and in our religious beliefs.”

The crew took time to recognize a milestone for Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, presenting him with a gold astronaut pin to mark his first spaceflight—a tradition within the astronaut corps.

“We wanted to kick off … by honoring our crewmate, Jeremy Hansen,” the crew said in a video shared by NASA Artemis on X. “We have a longstanding tradition in the astronaut office of the traditional astronaut pin. And when you fly in space, you change from silver to gold. So, we figured today was the perfect day to honor our friend, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, with his flown astro pin.”

Hansen expressed appreciation for the moment and those who made it possible.

“That’s humbling, took a lot of people to make this little representation that we have in the office, this tradition, come to reality for me,” he said. “So a lot of gratitude for all those people. This is a pretty special experience. Thanks for doing this guys.”

Meanwhile, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman pointed to the broader significance of the mission, crediting national leadership for its progress.

“I want to be incredibly clear, we would not be at this moment right now with Artemis II if it wasn’t for President Trump,” Isaacman said. “And we certainly would not have an achievable path now to get back to the lunar surface and build that enduring presence.”

“On my first day on the job during President Trump’s second term, he gave us a national space policy, a mandate to go to the moon with frequency, build the moon base, and do the other things like nuclear power and propulsion so someday American astronauts can plant the stars and stripes on Mars,” Isaacman added.

As the spacecraft approaches the far side of the Moon, mission controllers are preparing for a temporary communications blackout lasting about 40 minutes, during which Orion will lose direct contact with Earth.

Artemis flight director Judd Frieling expressed confidence in the mission’s trajectory despite the expected silence.

“Physics takes over and physics will absolutely get us back to the front side of the moon.”

During the journey, the astronauts are also expected to witness a total solar eclipse from their unique vantage point in space, allowing them to observe the sun’s corona in a way not visible from Earth.

Earlier in the mission, Commander Reid Wiseman shared another image of Earth from orbit, reflecting on the experience.

“There are no words,” Wiseman captioned the photo.

The Artemis II mission marks a major step in NASA’s return to the Moon, with the crew set to complete a close flyby before heading back to Earth.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he held a call with U.S. President Donald Trump following a daring operation to recover an American pilot whose aircraft went down inside Iran.

In remarks shared afterward, Netanyahu praised what he described as a decisive and precisely carried out U.S. mission, noting that Trump personally acknowledged Israel’s involvement.

“I spoke earlier with President Trump and personally congratulated him on his bold decision and a perfectly executed American mission to rescue the downed pilot from enemy territory,” Netanyahu said.

He added that Trump expressed gratitude for Israel’s assistance during the operation, underscoring the close coordination between the two allies.

Netanyahu highlighted the depth of cooperation between Washington and Jerusalem, saying it continues to reach new levels both strategically and operationally. He also said Israel takes pride in contributing to the rescue of an American service member under dangerous conditions.

Earlier in the day, Netanyahu issued a separate statement celebrating the mission’s success, describing it as a powerful example of what allied nations can achieve when acting with unity and determination.

“Congratulations, President Trump! All Israelis rejoice in the incredible rescue of a brave American pilot by America’s dauntless warriors,” he said.

He further emphasized that the operation reflects a long standing shared value between the two countries.

“This rescue proves that when free societies muster their courage and their resolve, they can confront seemingly insurmountable odds and overcome the forces of darkness and terror,” Netanyahu stated, adding that the mission reinforces the enduring principle that no soldier is ever abandoned.

Signs of growing unease are emerging inside Iran’s leadership, with reports pointing to mounting distrust and internal friction as President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign intensifies.

According to senior Iran analyst Dror Balazada, the current strategy coming from Washington is having a destabilizing psychological impact on key figures in Tehran, creating suspicion and division at the highest levels of the regime.

One of the central concerns reportedly involves senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps figure Ahmad Vahidi, who has been unsettled by Trump’s public assertions that he is communicating directly with Iranian commanders. In response, Vahidi is said to have issued strict internal instructions limiting authorized communication channels, designating only parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf to relay messages through Pakistan.

At the same time, suspicion within the regime is reportedly turning toward former foreign minister Javad Zarif and elements of the reformist camp, amid fears that unauthorized backchannel communications may be taking place without official approval.

Zarif, according to the report, is advocating for a sweeping diplomatic arrangement with the United States. The proposal is said to include limits on Iran’s nuclear activity, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, full restoration of diplomatic ties with Washington, and the lifting of all sanctions in exchange for a firm commitment to halt military strikes.

YWN regrets to inform you of the sudden petirah of Rebbetzin Reva Halpern a”h, the wife of Rav Binyomin Zev Halpern shlit”a of K’hal Bais Halevi of Lakewood, and daughter of Hagaon HaRav Simcha Schustal ZT’L. She is the sister of BMG Rosh Yeshiva HaRav Dovid Schustal, HaRav Shlomo Feivel Schustal, HaRav Tovia Schustal, sister of Rebbetzin Miriam Ungarischer, Rebbetzin Zeilberger, and Rebbetzin Bender.

The rebbetzin, who was 76, suddenly collapsed and was rushed by Hatzolah to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in critical condition, where she was Niftar.

The Levaya will take place today , Sunday Chol Hamoed, at Rabbi Halperns Shul 705 Valley Drive Lakewood NJ, at 8:15pm. The Kevura will be at the Lakewood Bais Hachaim

Baruch Dayan Ha’Emes.

Russia signaled on Sunday that it wants to see a reduction in hostilities surrounding Iran, expressing optimism that diplomatic efforts could succeed and urging the United States to shift away from threats and return to negotiations.

The message from Moscow’s Foreign Ministry followed a discussion between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, focusing on the growing crisis and possible paths to calm the situation.

According to the statement, both officials “called for efforts to avoid actions, including in the U.N. Security Council, that could undermine the remaining chances for advancing political and diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis.”

The Russian government added that it supports steps aimed at lowering tensions and stabilizing the region over the long term, emphasizing that such progress would depend in part on Washington changing its approach.

Russia, it said, backed efforts to de-escalate tensions “in the interests of long-term and sustainable normalization of the situation in the Middle East, which would be facilitated by the United States abandoning the language of ultimatums and returning the situation to a negotiating track.”

{Matzav.com}

A fourth suspect was arrested in connection with the recent firebombing of Hatzola Northwest ambulances in the north London neighborhood of Golders Green, after he was apprehended at the courthouse where three co-defendants were appearing for a hearing, the Metropolitan Police said.

The 19-year-old man was arrested at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life and taken into custody, the Met said. Police did not immediately release his name.

The March 23 attack targeted ambulances belonging to Hatzola Northwest. Golders Green is one of the largest Jewish communities in the United Kingdom.

The three suspects already in custody — Hamza Iqbal, 20, and Rehan Khan, 19, both British nationals from Leyton, and a 17-year-old dual British and Pakistani national from Walthamstow — were charged with arson being reckless as to whether life would be endangered and remanded in custody. They are scheduled to appear at the Old Bailey on April 24.

Prosecutor Emma Harraway told the court there is “significant evidence that this was a premeditated and targeted attack against the Jewish community,” according to Sky News.

Despite the involvement of Counter Terrorism Policing detectives in leading the investigation, the case is not being treated as a terrorism matter, according to the report.

The Islamist group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya has claimed responsibility for the Golders Green attack, as well as a series of attacks on Jewish institutions in Belgium and the Netherlands dating back to March 9 — suggesting a coordinated campaign targeting Jewish community infrastructure across Western Europe.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

(AP) – With volatile gasoline prices rising in recent weeks, Edmunds has seen increased shopper interest in hybrids, plug-in hybrids and fully electric vehicles. If you’re thinking about going 100% electric, there’s a way to save even more money: Buy used. While new EVs are more expensive than similar gas-powered vehicles, steep depreciation can actually make a 3-year-old EV more affordable than its gas counterpart.

This price downturn doesn’t just apply to outdated EVs either. Some of Edmunds’ favorite models can be found for cheap on the used market. We included the average pricing of 2022 to 2024 models to give you an idea of what you might have to pay. Note that the range figures listed below are for when the vehicles were new. Maximum range decreases slightly as an EV’s battery is used over time.

Chevrolet Bolt EV and Bolt EUV
If affordability is your top priority, then you might not need to look any further than the Bolt EV and its SUV-inspired sibling, the Bolt EUV. They are the best used EVs you can get for a killer price. It’s also a great value considering the Bolt’s generous list of tech features, spacious cabin and easy-to-park size. The Bolt EV gets up to an EPA-estimated 259 miles of range on a full charge, while the EUV can go up to 247 miles.

Tip: The Bolt EV debuted for the 2017 model year and remained in production until 2023. (A revised Bolt is set to debut for 2027.) If your budget allows, get a 2022 or 2023 Bolt EV or EUV for the updated styling and improved technology features. The Bolt is best for people who can charge at home. Charging at public charging stations can be tediously slow.

Average 2021-2023 pricing: about $18,000

Hyundai Kona Electric
The Kona Electric is the electric version of Hyundai’s pint-size crossover SUV. Like the gas-powered standard Kona, the Kona Electric is surprisingly nimble. Couple that with the instant acceleration of an electric motor and you have a small SUV that’s fun to drive. Other highlights include comfortable seating and a max EPA-estimated range of more than 250 miles.

Tip: Hyundai redesigned the Kona Electric for the 2024 model year, adding more interior space and improved technology features. But we think the better value is to focus on getting a 2022 or 2023 Kona Electric. In Edmunds’ testing, it was quicker than the newer model and went farther in our real-world range test.

Average 2022-2024 pricing: about $19,000

Hyundai Ioniq 5
The Ioniq 5’s combination of comfort, quick charging and user-friendly interior design has consistently made it one of Edmunds’ favorite electric SUVs. It’s not one of the most affordable EVs when new, but used ones can be purchased at a bargain price, especially considering the long list of standard features it offers. The Hyundai also boasts a distinctive design that sets it apart from other SUVs.

Tip: Avoid the Standard Range version. It’s the least expensive but is limited by its EPA-estimated 220 miles of range. All other Ioniq 5s have more range, topped by the single-motor version that can go up to 303 miles.

Average 2022-2024 pricing: about $25,000

Tesla Model 3
Your best pick for an electric sedan is the Tesla Model 3. It has a spacious interior and available advanced driver assistance systems that can make driving in traffic less fatiguing. Easy charging at Tesla’s vast network of Supercharger fast-charging stations is a key bonus, and the popularity of Telsas means there are plenty of used Model 3s to choose from.

Tip: Tesla updated the Model 3 for 2024, so if it’s within your budget, aim for a 2024 model or newer to take advantage of the Model 3’s latest interior and exterior styling, new features and improved comfort. The Model 3 is typically offered in a base version that has the least range, a long-range version and a powerful Performance model.

Average 2022-2024 pricing: about $26,000

Audi E-tron
The Q8 E-tron debuted for the 2019 model year as Audi’s first mass-produced EV. This Audi isn’t a class leader, but it’s still a good choice if you want a luxury electric SUV at a non-luxury price. It offers standard all-wheel drive and a lot of upscale features, including leather upholstery, ventilated front seats and a premium sound system.

Tip: The most significant drawback to the E-tron is range. A 2023 model can only go an EPA-estimated 226 miles. If you can, spend more to get a 2024 version. Renamed the Q8 E-tron, it gets a big increase to 285 miles.

Average 2022-2024 pricing: about $34,000

Edmunds says
Buying a used EV makes a lot of financial sense. If you’re on the fence because of battery replacement costs, keep in mind that EVs offer an eight-year/100,000-mile battery warranty. Some brands also offer additional coverage.

This photo provided by Hyundai shows the 2024 Ioniq 5. A used Hyundai Ioniq 5 stands out with its retro-themed styling, long range and comfortable seating. (Courtesy of Hyundai Motor America via AP)

This photo provided by Edmunds shows the 2024 Model 3. A used Model 3 has plenty of range, quick acceleration, and lots of cargo space for a sedan. (Courtesy of Edmunds via AP)

This photo provided by Audi shows the 2022 E-tron. A used E-tron isn’t the largest SUV around, but it has a premium look and feel that other non-luxury EVs can’t match. (Courtesy of Audi AG via AP)

This photo provided by Chevrolet shows the 2023 Bolt EV. A used Bolt EV is an ideal choice for a low-cost electric vehicle for everyday driving around town. (Courtesy of General Motors via AP)

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When Iran recently launched ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, it wasn’t just firing at a remote American military outpost in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It was, in a meaningful sense, field-testing North Korean hardware.

That’s the picture emerging from weapons analysts who have spent years tracking the deepening military partnership between Tehran and Pyongyang — a relationship that has quietly shaped the backbone of Iran’s ballistic missile inventory for decades.

The missile aimed at Diego Garcia was a Musudan, according to Bruce Bechtol, who co-authored Rogue Allies: The Strategic Partnership Between Iran and North Korea. Iran purchased 19 of them directly from North Korea and took delivery in 2005. “This is no ‘secret weapon,'” Bechtol told Fox News Digital — just a two-decade-old procurement that finally made headlines when one of those missiles crossed 4,000 kilometers of ocean toward a joint US-UK base.

The attack itself was only partially successful, by the most charitable definition. One missile failed mid-flight. A US warship fired an intercept at the other. Whether that intercept landed is still unclear, but neither missile struck the base. What was clear was the range — roughly double the 2,000-kilometer ceiling Iran’s own foreign minister publicly claimed his country’s missiles could reach just last month.

The North Korean thread runs deeper than a single purchase. Iran’s short-range missiles targeting American assets in neighboring Gulf states rely on the QIAM system, built with North Korean technical assistance. The Shahab-3, which Iran markets as a domestic development, is, in Bechtol’s description, nearly an identical copy of North Korea’s No Dong. Pyongyang transferred around 150 No Dong systems to Iran in the late 1990s, and then, apparently encouraged by Iranian satisfaction with the product, helped build a No Dong production facility on Iranian soil. The Emad and Ghadr systems — both deployed against Israel and Gulf targets — rolled out of that same facility.

Bechtol’s summary of the arrangement is blunt: North Korea builds, Iran buys, and the currency is cash and oil.

What Iran has now is a layered arsenal anchored in short- and medium-range systems stretching up to 3,000 kilometers, according to Israel’s Alma Research and Education Center. What it is apparently working toward is something longer. The center assessed at the outset of the current conflict that Iran’s long-range ballistic missile program was in advanced stages of development — a program that, if the pattern holds, likely has a Pyongyang return address somewhere in its supply chain.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)