A serious security incident unfolded Sunday night in the chareidi city of Modi’in Illit, after dozens of illegal entrants infiltrated the city area, triggering a large-scale response by the army and civilian security volunteers.
According to reports received by the Shomrim emergency hotline, approximately 25 illegal entrants breached the area near the Yellow Gate at the edge of the Green Park neighborhood. After crossing into the city’s vicinity, the suspects fled toward the direction of Kfar Ruth, with several apprehended by IDF forces during the pursuit.
Due to concerns that additional suspects may still be at large, dozens of Shomrim volunteers rushed to the eastern neighborhoods and surrounding open areas to conduct intensive searches, both on foot and by vehicle. The operation was reinforced by Israel’s drone unit, which deployed operators using a thermal drone to scan the wadi and adjacent terrain for possible escapees.
Shomrim officials said that while some of the infiltrators were detained, there is a strong likelihood that others managed to evade capture, prompting the ongoing sweeps late into the night.
The incident has raised significant security concerns, particularly in light of previous threats directed at the city. Several months ago, the Hamas terror organization released a propaganda video containing explicit threats against Israel, in which Hamas prominently marked Modi’in Illit as a central target for potential attacks. The video, intended to intimidate the Israeli public, was viewed as an escalation in the group’s threats.
In that footage, the chareidi city was clearly identified as one of the locations the organization seeks to strike, with messaging aimed specifically at the chareidi population. Security officials have warned that such threats reflect an effort to undermine the personal safety of Israeli civilians throughout the country.
Authorities continue to monitor the situation closely as searches remain underway.
{Matzav.com}
Israel plans to reopen the Rafah Crossing with Egypt once a military effort now underway concludes with the recovery of the body of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, according to an announcement released Sunday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
The decision followed deliberations by the security cabinet and comes amid mounting international calls for Israel to resume operations at the key Gaza–Egypt border crossing.
Although the Prime Minister’s Office did not specify how long the current IDF mission is expected to last, a US official told The Times of Israel that American officials anticipate the operation will take several days, potentially clearing the way for the crossing to reopen before the end of the week.
Earlier Sunday night, the IDF confirmed that troops are conducting a search for Gvili’s remains at a cemetery in northern Gaza. The military said intelligence indicating the body is buried at the site is credible, while noting that other intelligence avenues are also being pursued.
Separately, the head of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza and the Gaza envoy to the NCAG-supervising Board of Peace announced on Thursday that Rafah would resume operations this week, marking its first reopening in nearly a year.
In its statement, Netanyahu’s office said reopening the sole pedestrian crossing between Gaza and Egypt is contingent “on the return of all living hostages and on Hamas making a 100% effort to locate and return all slain hostages.”
Under the October 9 Israel-Hamas agreement tied to the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s broader Gaza peace initiative, all hostages were to be returned within 72 hours of the October 10 ceasefire. The deal acknowledged, however, that retrieving bodies from beneath Gaza’s rubble could take longer and did not explicitly link reopening Rafah to the return of all captives.
Israel has declined to advance to the second phase of Trump’s plan — including reopening Rafah — until Gvili’s body is recovered. Hamas has said it does not know the precise location of his remains but claims it has attempted to search for them.
The Prime Minister’s Office said the IDF is currently carrying out “a focused operation to fully utilize all intelligence obtained in the effort to locate and return” Gvili.
Once the mission concludes, “and in accordance with what was agreed on with the United States,” Israel will move ahead with reopening the crossing, the statement said.
Netanyahu’s office emphasized Israel’s commitment to returning Gvili and vowed to exhaust all efforts to bring his body home.
The operation began over the weekend following intelligence assessments that Gvili was buried in a Muslim cemetery in eastern Gaza City, near the neighborhoods of Shejaiya, Daraj, and Tuffah.
Gvili, 24, served as a policeman and was killed while defending Kibbutz Alumim in southern Israel during the Hamas-led assault on October 7, 2023, which ignited the Gaza war. He joined the fighting despite awaiting surgery for a shoulder injury.
On Friday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir attended the family’s weekly rally in Tel Aviv and reportedly told Gvili’s parents there was “room for optimism” regarding their son’s return.
During a security cabinet meeting Sunday night, far-right ministers reportedly voiced strong opposition to the plan to reopen Rafah.
“We did great things like kill tens of thousands of terrorists, but we still haven’t completely eliminated Hamas,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said, according to quotes reported by the Walla news site.
“We have to dismantle and disarm it. Enough with [Jared] Kushner and [Steve] Witkoff’s naivety — if Rafah Crossing opens, it will be a big mistake and a very bad message,” he reportedly said.
The US envoys, who met with Netanyahu and other senior officials during their visit to Israel, have been urging the government to proceed with the next stages of Trump’s Gaza framework.
Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock also criticized the move, reportedly arguing that Israel was effectively transferring control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, which the government accuses of supporting terrorism and says should have no governing role in the enclave.
“This cabinet will eventually make a decision to send our soldiers to fight Hamas because no one else will do it, and then what will we tell them?” she said, according to Walla.
While Rafah has been used to transfer goods at various points during the war, its primary designation is for pedestrian crossings.
{Matzav.com}
[Video below.] An American climber stunned onlookers by scaling one of the world’s tallest skyscrapers without ropes, completing a rare free-solo ascent in front of a global audience.
The climber, 40-year-old Alex Honnold, made his way up Taipei 101, a 1,667-foot tower in Taiwan, during a Netflix livestream that was pushed to Sunday after rain forced a delay, according to CBS News.
The ascent took roughly an hour and a half, and recorded footage captures the final moments as Honnold reached the summit.
Standing atop the building, he briefly took in the view and reacted with a single word: “Sick!” before peering down at the city far below.
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Additional video shows him pausing to recover, then pulling out his phone to snap a selfie. “This is so cool… I’m so psyched and you know what, pretty tired, actually,” he said.
CBS News noted the prominence of the structure itself, writing: “Taipei 101 is one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world. The building was designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and opened in 2004. It’s home to observatories, restaurants, a shopping mall and offices, as well as the Taiwan Stock Exchange.”
Honnold’s website highlights his previous achievements, stating that he is the only person to have free-solo climbed Yosemite National Park’s 3,000-foot El Capitan.
The site adds high praise for his accomplishments, saying, “More people will walk on the moon than will do what Alex Honnold has done. His extremely rare skill and unmatched mental focus have helped make him climbing’s transcendent, breakout star, inspiring millions around the world.”
Footage from earlier in the event shows the married father of two beginning his climb as spectators looked on, applauding and cheering while he periodically turned back to grin at the crowd.
Before starting the ascent, Honnold explained that his focus was on precision and avoiding errors, according to People magazine.
“I’m sure I’ll feel a little nervous at the bottom, just because it’s something totally new. I’ve spent 30 years climbing rock faces; this is going to be my first big handmade structure, so I’m sure it’ll feel a little different,” he said, adding, “My life is on the line — I don’t really care who’s watching. I care about doing what I’m doing and doing it well.”
{Matzav.com}
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Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas sharply criticized President Donald Trump’s tariff strategy and derided Vice President JD Vance during private donor gatherings last year, according to audio recordings obtained by Axios that capture some of the most pointed intra-party attacks from a Republican lawmaker since the administration took office.
The comments, made during two separate meetings, reveal Cruz leveling unusually blunt critiques of both Trump and Vance behind closed doors, at a time when he is widely viewed as weighing a potential 2028 presidential bid.
The recordings — totaling nearly 10 minutes — show Cruz framing himself as a pro–free trade, interventionist Republican, positioning his views in contrast to Vance’s more restrained foreign policy outlook as a possible primary challenge looms.
In the conversations, Cruz portrays Vance as closely aligned with conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson, whom Cruz has repeatedly accused in public disputes of promoting antisemitism and advocating an anti-Israel foreign policy.
The audio files were provided to Axios by a Republican source and were recorded in early and mid-2025.
In the later recording, Cruz warns donors that Trump’s tariffs risk triggering severe economic fallout and could ultimately expose the president to impeachment.
Cruz recounts that after Trump announced the tariffs in early April 2025, he and several other senators held a late-night call with the president urging him to reconsider. Cruz says the call stretched past midnight and “did not go well,” describing Trump as “yelling” and “cursing.”
“Trump was in a bad mood,” Cruz tells the donors. “I’ve been in conversations where he was very happy. This was not one of them.”
Cruz says he cautioned Trump about the political consequences, recalling that he told the president: “Mr. President, if we get to November of [2026] and people’s 401(k)s are down 30% and prices are up 10–20% at the supermarket, we’re going to go into Election Day, face a bloodbath.”
“You’re going to lose the House, you’re going to lose the Senate, you’re going to spend the next two years being impeached every single week.”
According to Cruz, Trump’s response was blunt: “[Curse] you, Ted.”
At one point during the donor session, when an attendee referenced “Liberation Day,” Trump’s label for the tariff rollout, Cruz quipped: “I’ve told my team if anyone uses those words, they will be terminated on the spot. That is not language we use.”
Cruz also told donors that he has been “battling” the White House to secure approval for a trade agreement with India. When asked which administration officials have resisted such deals, Cruz pointed to White House economic adviser Peter Navarro, Vance, and “sometimes” Trump.
Returning to Vance, Cruz again tied him closely to Carlson’s worldview, saying: “Tucker created JD. JD is Tucker’s protégé, and they are one and the same.”
{Matzav.com}
[Video below.] Rav Aharon Teitelbaum of Satmar issued a sweeping directive prohibiting yeshiva bochurim and avreichim affiliated with Satmar institutions in Israel from taking part in street protests, following a series of deadly incidents in which two bochurim were killed during or near demonstrations against the draft law and other issues.
The directive was delivered Motzaei Shabbos during a melaveh malkah marking the yahrtzeit of the Rebbe’s grandfather, the Atzei Chaim of Sighet, in Palm Springs. In his remarks, the Rebbe addressed the recent tragedies and announced an outright ban on participation in protests by members of the Satmar community.
The Rebbe’s comments followed recent demonstrations during which two bochurim, Yosef Eisenthal and Naftali Tzvi Kramer, were killed after being struck by vehicles. The Rebbe referred to the drivers involved as “רוצח’ישע דרייווערס,” saying they deliberately drove buses into crowds in order to harm bochurim.
Recalling earlier tragedies, the Rebbe referenced the 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the Shomron by Hamas terrorists. He said: “I spoke then and asked a very difficult question: Who gives permission to send bochurim into the occupied territories? It is a place of danger, Arab murderers roam there and kill bochurim, and the parents who sent their children to a place of danger, their blood is on their hands. At the time there were many Zionists who shouted that it was not a dangerous place, but the reality is known to all: sending bochurim into the territories is murder.”
Turning to the current wave of protests, the Rebbe said: “In recent weeks, when the decree of drafting yeshiva students reached a new peak, with harsh decrees and the kidnapping of bochurim from their homes, they began organizing protests in the streets. Unfortunately, at some of these protests there are people who block roads and do improper things. Recently, two bochurim were murdered in these protests, and I want to say from here — the Zionists are no less murderers than the Arabs.”
The Rebbe continued: “Just as everyone understands that we do not send bochurim into the territories where Arab murderers roam, in the same way we do not send bochurim to protests where Zionist murderers roam. It is exactly the same thing.”
Emphasizing that the ruling applies directly to his own community, the Rebbe said: “I cannot speak for the entire world, but we have yeshivos in Yerushalayim and Bnei Brak, we have kollelim in Yerushalayim and Bnei Brak — and I want from here to forbid our people not to participate in these protests where Zionist murderers are present.”
Citing the principle of ‘al pi shnayim eidim yakum davar’, the Rebbe added: “Two bochurim were murdered by the Zionist murderers, and that is enough.” He requested that his words be publicized in every place where there is a Satmar community, saying, “It needs to be heard throughout all of Eretz Yisrael.”
The Rebbe concluded by citing the Gemara in Chullin that “chamira sakanta mei’isura” — danger is more severe than prohibition and invoked the teachings of the Satmar Rebbe Rav Yoel Teitelbaum, the Divrei Yoel. He said that anyone familiar with how the Divrei Yoel led the struggle against Zionism knew that he recognized the danger involved, and therefore ruled that all members of the Satmar community are forbidden from participating in such demonstrations.
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