Israeli Housing and Construction Minister Yitzchok Goldknopf stated on Tuesday that he planned to take part in the Memorial Day service at the military cemetery in Kiryat Gat, brushing aside objections from mourning families in the city who expressed discomfort over a chareidi figure attending the event.
A group of bereaved relatives sent a letter to Goldknopf, pleading with him not to appear. “We, several bereaved families from Kiryat Gat, ask you in every way possible not to attend the Memorial Day ceremony for IDF fallen soldiers in Kiryat Gat,” the letter read.
The families went on to say, “We believe that someone representing groups in Israeli society who refuse to bear the burden of military service cannot stand before bereaved parents and speak on a day that is so sacred to us.”
Goldknopf, who leads the chareidi United Torah Judaism party, has been a vocal opponent of drafting chareidi men into the army.
In their letter, the grieving families said they would rather see Goldknopf spend his time “recruiting yeshiva students” than addressing them at the cemetery.
Sources close to Goldknopf told Channel 12 News that “no negotiations are underway to replace him” and confirmed that he was determined to attend the ceremony.
This wasn’t the first time Goldknopf had been assigned to the Kiryat Gat event. He had been designated to attend last year as well, and after similar backlash from families, he ultimately chose to withdraw.
One of the signatories, Chaim Saadon — whose brother Avner died in service in 1974 — urged Goldknopf to step aside this year and allow another official to participate in his place.
“As a bereaved family, we feel that there is a moral and ethical offense to our feelings here,” said Saadon to Channel 12. “As soon as everyone enlists in the army, I’ll leave him be, but it cannot stand that someone who doesn’t enlist in the army should come and speak at the Memorial Day ceremony.”
The IDF has reported a significant personnel shortage, stating that it needs around 12,000 additional troops, including roughly 7,000 for combat roles.
At present, nearly 70,000 chareidi men aged 18 to 24 are technically eligible for conscription but have not joined the military.
On Sunday, the High Court of Justice issued an interim ruling requiring the state to clarify why it had not issued a sufficient number of draft notices to chareidi yeshiva students to fulfill the army’s needs, and why it had failed to implement the notices that had been issued. The court gave the government until June 24 to submit a written explanation addressing those failures.
{Matzav.com Israel}
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called the promotion of voluntary emigration from Gaza “the most moral and humane thing to do,” voicing strong support for President Donald Trump’s plan to revitalize the battered region along the Mediterranean coast.
During remarks at the JNS International Policy Summit in Yerushalayim, Sa’ar insisted that Palestinians must be viewed “as human beings” rather than “weapons against Israel,” saying they deserve the same emigration rights granted to those fleeing war-torn nations elsewhere.
Sa’ar pointed out that two conditions must be met: individuals must willingly choose to emigrate, and another country must be ready to receive them.
“First,” he stated, a person or a family must want to emigrate of their own “free will and free choice,” as anyone from Syria, Afghanistan, or elsewhere is entitled to do.
“The second condition,” he added, is that a state must be willing to accept them “on the other side.”
If both criteria are satisfied, Sa’ar said, encouraging Gazans to relocate becomes “the most moral and humane thing to do.”
Sa’ar praised the relationship between Israel and its “very good partner in Washington,” explaining that many nations have long “use[d] the Palestinians — weaponize[d] them — against the State of Israel,” blocking Gazans’ ability to pursue new futures.
His comments come amid growing momentum behind President Trump’s strategy to reimagine Gaza’s waterfront as an economic engine, offering residents an opportunity to resettle and rebuild their lives.
At the same time, Israel continues its military campaign against Hamas after the October 7, 2023 attack — the deadliest act of terror in the country’s history — when Hamas terrorists invaded Israeli towns, murdering concertgoers and civilians, carrying out mass rapes, tortures, killings, and kidnappings.
In February, President Trump introduced his plan for Gaza alongside Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, unveiling a groundbreaking U.S. approach that prioritizes resettlement and reconstruction to foster peace and prosperity.
Israel subsequently announced the creation of a new division, led by Defense Minister Israel Katz, tasked with overseeing the voluntary emigration process — an initiative that fully supports President Trump’s broader regional goals.
“I welcome President Trump’s bold initiative,” Katz stated, calling the relocation plan a historic chance for Gazans to find hope elsewhere while strengthening Israel’s security.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel’s renewed military operations in Gaza are partly aimed at creating conditions that will enable voluntary emigration, with Hamas refusing to budge during hostage negotiations.
Breitbart News has previously highlighted that President Trump’s Gaza plan has been well received by many civilians. Surveys from the Center for Peace Communications show a considerable number of Gazans are eager to leave the devastated area and start anew abroad.
For the United States, facilitating Gaza’s depopulation could ease regional tensions, erode Hamas’s influence, reduce the burden of humanitarian assistance, and encourage Arab nations to take a more active role in the region’s stabilization.
Earlier this month, during a joint public appearance with Netanyahu at the White House, President Trump reaffirmed his vision of Gaza transforming into a “freedom zone,” free from violence and terror.
“If you take the people — the Palestinians — and move them around to different countries, and you have plenty of countries that will do that, you really have a ‘freedom zone,’ a free zone where people aren’t going to be killed every day,” Trump said, adding that Gaza had long been synonymous with “killing and Hamas and problems.”
Netanyahu endorsed President Trump’s proposal, saying: “What the president is talking about is [to] give people a choice. Gazans were closed in… People could leave [in other war zones]. What is wrong with giving people a choice?”
Meanwhile, a senior Israeli official revealed that several countries have stepped forward offering to absorb Gazan emigrants, with serious diplomatic groundwork already underway to make President Trump’s vision a reality.
Recent polls show that more than half of Gaza’s population would willingly relocate if given the opportunity, adding new energy to President Trump’s concept of voluntary resettlement and Gaza’s postwar redevelopment.
{Matzav.com Israel}
Fake Jake going all in on protecting the worst of the worst…
While reporting on the Trump Administration’s decision to cover the White House lawn with signs of violent illegal alien criminals on Monday, CNN’s Jake Tapper and his crew decided to blur the faces of the criminals.
“The Trump Administration is approaching its 100-day mark with a full-court press on the issue of illegal immigration — and they really don’t want you to miss it,” Tapper said. “They subtly and tastefully decked the White House north lawn with dozens of yard signs featuring photos of people the Trump Administration claims are in the country illegally.”
“CNN’s working to confirm the identities and if there are actual allegations against these people. Until then, we are blurring their identities,” Tapper added.
Watch the clip below:
But CNN wasn’t the only outlet to protect the identities of some of the most heinous criminals in the country — MSNBC got in on the action, as well:
During Monday night’s Hannity, Stephen Miller said the lawn signs were a way to get the “pompous jerks” in the left-wing media to cover the atrocious crimes being committed by illegal criminal migrants.
“President Trump’s White House has forced, brilliantly, these outlets to acknowledge these crimes, to acknowledge these atrocities by putting these posters, these mugshots and their criminal histories right behind them as they stand there and do their shots every single day,” Miller said. “We’re going to keep forcing the media to cover the atrocities committed by the illegal aliens that Joe Biden and the Democrat Party have brought into our country.”
{Matzav.com}
During a recent Fox News appearance, pollster Matt Towery took a hatchet to reports that President Trump is polling free-fall.
“None of them, to be honest with you. I have a group of pollsters I look at who are public pollsters who’ve been right in all three of Trump’s cycles,” Towery said. “We happen to be one of those. None of us have had him down by any of these numbers we’ve seen before. The only one that might concern me at all is the Fox News one because Fox did well in the 24 cycle.”
“So that’s the only one of these other ones — I looked at some of them. I don’t like to criticize polling, but how can you have a poll, as John McLaughlin, a good friend of mine pointed out, how could you have a poll that shows Donald Trump at 39%?” Towery asked. “But yet when you ask people who they voted for and they said they voted for Trump, 95% said they would vote for him again.”
According to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released Saturday, 39% of the 2,464 respondents said they approve of Trump’s job performance, dropping six points from their February poll. With a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, the poll said 37% of respondents trust Trump to handle the country’s main problems, compared to 30% who said they trust Democrats in Congress.
“Now, last time I checked, Donald Trump got almost 50% of the vote. So how in the world can that poll be correct? There’s no possible way,” Towery said. “He’s not in free fall. He’s had a little bit of slippage because he’s doing a lot. He’s breaking a lot of eggs to make an omelet, but he is not dropping in any significant way. I can guarantee you, and I’m just not paying any attention to this nonsense. They were wrong in the elections in the past, and they’re going to be wrong about his approval rating as well.”
{Matzav.com}
An Israeli court handed down a ten-year prison sentence to Moti Maman after he was found guilty of maintaining ties with foreign operatives from Iran.
In their ruling, the judges emphasized: “Motivated by financial gain, he committed offenses of entering an enemy state and contacting a foreign agent; he received several thousand dollars from Iranian officers, negotiated with them financially, and requested a million dollars. While doing so, he published posts on social media supporting Likud and Netanyahu.”
They pointed out that the crimes were committed during an especially critical period — wartime — when Iran poses a major threat to Israel, and while the IDF is engaged in battles across various fronts.
Despite the risks, Maman continued to engage with hostile actors while inside enemy territory, suggesting that ideological motives may have been just as influential as financial ones. The court did acknowledge in his favor that Maman served in the First Lebanon War and had provided supplies to multiple military bases since the outbreak of the current conflict.
Last December, Maman, who is 72 years old, was found guilty after admitting to charges of unlawfully traveling to an enemy country and establishing contact with a foreign agent.
This case marks the first conviction of its kind since the beginning of the Swords of Iron campaign. Meanwhile, several other cases are progressing, where Israeli citizens stand accused of conspiring with Iranian agents to attack Israel or its people.
Maman admitted during the investigation that he met repeatedly with Iranian intelligence operatives on Iranian soil, asserting that he acted largely out of financial interest.
Court documents reveal that Maman made two separate trips to Iran, where he engaged in discussions with Iranian agents about potentially orchestrating terror attacks within Israel, posing significant threats to national security. His meetings with Iranian officials were reportedly fueled, in part, by the targeted killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Iran’s desire to retaliate.
The indictment detailed: “The Iranian agents discussed with the defendant during the meetings the possibility that the defendant would assassinate senior Israeli figures in Israel, including Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, and ISA head Ronen Bar.”
It was further stated, “Other options for carrying out terrorist and espionage activities in Israel by the defendant were discussed. This included examining the possibility of assassinating former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett or certain mayors using an explosive device, establishing dedicated assassination cells in Russia and the United States by the defendant, which would be activated with the aim of murdering opponents of the Iranian regime, and carrying out money laundering in Israel for others.”
{Matzav.com Israel}
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged nations to take concrete and irreversible steps toward making a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians a reality, as preparations were underway for an upcoming international summit scheduled for June.
“I encourage Member States to go beyond affirmations, and to think creatively about the concrete steps they will take to support a viable two-state solution before it is too late,” Guterres told a session of the Security Council focused on the Middle East.
France and Saudi Arabia had announced that they would jointly lead the June conference at the United Nations.
“Our objective is clear: to make progress on the recognition of Palestine and the normalization of relations with Israel at the same time,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told the Security Council.
“This is how we will be able to guarantee Israel’s security and its regional integration, whilst responding to the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians to have their own state,” he said.
Barrot also emphasized that any real advancement toward a two-state solution would require Hamas to disarm, the creation of a legitimate governing structure in Gaza that excluded Hamas, and significant reforms within the Palestinian Authority.
Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu had reiterated on several occasions that Israel would not permit the Palestinian Authority to have any role in administering the Gaza Strip. In a conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron earlier in the month, he also stated that creating a Palestinian state would be a “huge prize for terror.”
{Matzav.com Israel}
