In a stunning rebuke of America’s closest ally, President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned Israel to “not bomb Iran,” just hours after Israeli warplanes launched retaliatory strikes on Tehran in response to a deadly Iranian missile attack. Speaking to reporters before departing for a NATO summit in The Hague, Trump accused both Iran and Israel of violating the fragile ceasefire he brokered a day earlier. But he reserved his fiercest criticism for Jerusalem. “Israel, as soon as we made the deal, dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I’ve never seen before,” Trump said. “I’m not happy with them. I’m not happy with Iran either. But I’m really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning because of one rocket that didn’t even land.” The president then posted in all caps on Truth Social: “ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW!” Shortly later, he wrote, “ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect! Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Minutes later he wrote: “IRAN WILL NEVER REBUILD THEIR NUCLEAR FACILITIES!” The ceasefire — announced Monday night from Palm Beach — was designed to pause hostilities after U.S. B-2 stealth bombers devastated Iran’s nuclear program with bunker-buster strikes. But within hours, a missile launched from Iranian territory struck Beersheva, killing four Israeli civilians. Though Iran denied involvement, Israel responded with what officials called a “forceful counteroffensive.” Trump expressed frustration with both sides. “You’ve got two countries who’ve been fighting so long, they don’t know what… they’re doing,” he said bluntly. The president also lashed out at U.S. media outlets, accusing CNN and MSNBC of downplaying the effectiveness of the airstrikes. “They’re hurting great pilots that put their lives on the line,” Trump said. “CNN is SCUM. And so is MSDNC.” Despite claiming Iran’s nuclear program was “completely demolished,” Trump’s own military advisors urged caution. Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said it was “too early” to assess the full extent of the damage. Channel 12 journalist Amit Segal quoted an Israeli official as saying, “The Trump administration conveyed a message that Israel has the right to respond after Iran attacked. We’re trying to understand the meaning of his latest comments.” Ynet reported that Israeli officials were shocked by Trump’s statements, as the government had stated that Israel had coordinated with the US regarding responses to Iranian ceasefire violations. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Trump spoke by phone following the outburst and agreed that the IAF would carry out a small “symbolic” strike on an Iranian radar. Shortly later, Israeli officials confirmed that a strike against an Iranian radar in northern Tehran was carried out. The Israeli government released an official statement on Tuesday morning announcing that all goals of Operation “Am K’Lavi” have been achieved and that Israel has agreed to Trump’s proposal for a ceasefire with Iran. (YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)
The Israel Airports Authority (IAA) on Tuesday began preparing to gradually resume full operations at Ben Gurion Airport following Israel’s confirmation of a ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday morning. Despite the fact that Iran violated the ceasefire several hours after it was announced, Israeli airspace remained open, and planes near the airport were ordered to circle in the air until the incident was over. The IAA held a situational assessment on the resumption of operations on Tuesday with senior defense officials and the Israel Civil Aviation Authority. There are still tens of thousands of Israelis stranded abroad, although according to data released by the Population and Immigration Authority on Tuesday morning, 95,441 Israelis have returned to Israel since the beginning of the war: 52,554 via land crossings, 8,386 via sea, and 34,501 by air. (YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)
Several hours after Israel confirmed a ceasefire with Iran, sirens blared in northern Israel, indicating an incoming missile attack. Iran launched two ballistic missiles, which, b’chasdei Hashem, were successfully intercepted. Shrapnel from an interceptor missile fell on the moshav of Yodfat in the Lower Galil, injuring several cows. Following the launch, Defense Minister Yisrael Katz stated that he ordered the IDF “to respond forcefully to Iran’s violation of the ceasefire by launching intense attacks against regime targets in the heart of Tehran.” “In light of Iran’s blatant violation of the ceasefire announced by the US President, and in accordance with the policy set by the Israeli government to respond forcefully to any violation, I have instructed the IDF, in coordination with the Prime Minister, to continue the powerful attacks on regime targets and terror infrastructure in Tehran, in continuation of yesterday’s actions,” Katz stated. IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir held a situational assessment following Iran’s violation of the ceasefire and stated, “In light of the serious violation of the ceasefire carried out by the Iranian regime, we will attack with force.” An Israeli diplomatic official said that “Iran violated the ceasefire, and it will pay.” Tehran denied that Israel fired missiles after the ceasefire began and threatened that Israel bear responsiblity for any attack. Shortly later, the Revolutionary Guards claimed that “Israel attacked targets in Iran until 9:00 a.m. in three stages. The forces previously announced that they would not leave any attack unanswered and that Israel will pay a heavy price.” (YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)
The Israeli government released an official statement on Monday morning announcing that all goals of Operation “Am K’Lavi” (“Like a Lion”) have been achieved — and far beyond. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu convened the Security Cabinet last night, along with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, and Mossad Director David Barnea, to formally update them on the operation’s outcomes. “Israel has removed an immediate, dual existential threat — both from Iran’s nuclear program and its ballistic missile capabilities,” the statement read. The IDF reportedly achieved full air superiority over Tehran, dealt a major blow to Iran’s military leadership, and destroyed dozens of key government and regime targets. In the last 24 hours alone, the IDF struck central government targets in the heart of Tehran, eliminated hundreds of Basij operatives — the regime’s brutal internal enforcement force — and took out another senior Iranian nuclear scientist. “Israel thanks President Trump and the United States for their unwavering support and for partnering in eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat,” the statement continued. With the operation’s objectives achieved, and in full coordination with President Trump, Israel has agreed to the President’s proposal for a mutual ceasefire. “Israel will respond with full force to any violation of the ceasefire.” The government also urged Israeli citizens to continue following Home Front Command directives until the ceasefire is fully verified. “Our hearts are with the families who lost loved ones, and we pray for the complete recovery of the wounded.” “Through Operation ‘Am K’Lavi,’ the State of Israel has achieved historic and monumental success, positioning itself alongside the world’s leading powers.” “This is a tremendous victory for the Jewish people and for our brave fighters who have removed two existential threats to our nation and secured the future of Am Yisrael.” Prime Minister Netanyahu is expected to deliver a public statement later today.
TRAGEDY GROWS: MDA Spokesperson: Following the missile fire towards Israel: As of 7:45, at the Beersheva missile impact site: 7 fatalities 2 moderately injured 20 minor injuries and anxiety. MDA teams are continuing search and rescue operations.
DEATH TOLL RISES: Rescue teams have recovered the body of a woman from beneath the rubble of an apartment building in Be’er Sheva, bringing the death toll from the Iranian ballistic missile strike to four. Emergency crews continue to search the scene for any additional victims.
BEERSHEVA: Rescue teams are seen combing through the building struck by an Iranian missile as they desperately search for survivors beneath the rubble.
Senior Advisor to President Trump Stephen Miller: “Everyone said, who was a critic of this action, that it would lead to World War III, and instead, we have a ceasefire and instead, we have the beginnings of a new era of stability and peace and security in the Middle East.”
The largest digital camera ever built released its first shots of the universe Monday — including colorful nebulas, stars and galaxies. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, located on a mountaintop in Chile, was built to take a deeper look at the night sky, covering hidden corners. Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy, it will survey the southern sky for the next 10 years. The observatory’s first look features the vibrant Trifid and Lagoon nebulas located thousands of light-years from Earth. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles. A gaggle of galaxies known as the Virgo Cluster were also captured, including two bright blue spirals. The observatory hopes to image 20 billion galaxies and discover new asteroids and other celestial objects. The effort is named after astronomer Vera Rubin, who offered the first tantalizing evidence that a mysterious force called dark matter might be lurking in the universe. Researchers hope the observatory’s discerning camera may yield clues about this elusive entity along with another called dark energy. (AP)
Iran’s foreign minister says that, as of now, there is no official agreement on the cessation of violence between them and Israel, but Iran will stop its aggression if Israel does first.
A plane flying over the Hudson River near New York City on Monday pulled a banner with a message of thanks for President Donald Trump. The banner included two Israeli flags, and in between, a message that read, “THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP.”
IDIOT ALERT: Sen. Schumer, as Pres. Trump was announcing PEACE DEAL between Israel & Iran: “No President should be allowed to unilaterally march this nation into war.”
Maria Weston Kuhn had one lingering question about the car crash that forced her to have emergency surgery during a vacation in Ireland: Why did she and her mother sustain serious injuries while her father and brother, who sat in the front, emerge unscathed? “It was a head-on crash and they were closest to the point of contact,” said Kuhn, now 25, who missed a semester of college to recover from the 2019 collision that caused her seat belt to slide off her hips and rupture her intestines by pinning them against her spine. “That was an early clue that something else was going on.” When Kuhn returned home to Maine, she found an article her grandma had clipped from Consumer Reports and left on her bed. Women are 73% more likely to be injured in a frontal crash, she learned, yet the dummy used in vehicle tests by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration dates back to the 1970s and is still modeled almost entirely off the body of a man. A survivor becomes an activist Kuhn, who is starting law school at New York University this fall, took action and founded the nonprofit Drive US Forward. Its aim was to raise public awareness and eventually encourage members of Congress to sign onto a bill that would require NHTSA to incorporate a more advanced female dummy into its testing. The agency has the final word on whether cars get pulled from the market, and the kind of dummy used in its safety tests could impact which ones receive coveted five-star ratings. “It seems like we have an easy solution here where we can have crash test dummies that reflect an average woman as well as a man,” Sen. Deb Fischer, a Nebraska Republican who has introduced the legislation the past two sessions, told The Associated Press. Senators from both parties have signed onto Fischer’s “She Drives Act,” and the transportation secretaries from the past two presidential administrations have expressed support for updating the rules. But for various reasons, the push for new safety requirements has been moving at a sluggish pace. That’s particularly true in the U.S., where much of the research is happening and where around 40,000 people are killed each year in car crashes. Evolution of a crash test dummy The crash test dummy currently used in NHTSA five-star testing is called the Hybrid III, which was developed in 1978 and modeled after a 5-foot-9, 171-pound man (the average size in the 1970s but about 29 pounds lighter than today’s average). What’s known as the female dummy is essentially a much smaller version of the male model with a rubber jacket. It’s routinely tested in the passenger seat or the back seat but seldom in the driver’s seat, even though the majority of licensed drivers are women. “What they didn’t do is design a crash test dummy that has all the sensors in the areas where a woman would be injured differently than a man,” said Christopher O’Connor, president and CEO of the Farmington Hills, Michigan-based Humanetics Group, which has spent more than a decade developing and refining one. A female dummy from Humanetics equipped with all of the available sensors costs around $1 million, about twice the cost of the Hybrid used now. But, O’Connor says, the more expensive dummy far more […]
HaRav Moshe Chaim Schneider, a close talmid of HaTzaddik HaRav Dov Kook, went to his home in Tiveria on Sunday and showed him a photocopy from the ancient sefer ‘Kli Paz’ written by the Mekubal HaRav Shmuel Shmuel Laniado, z’tl, who lived about 500 years ago and was known as ‘Baal HaKeilim’—after his seferim: ‘Kli Paz,’ ‘Kli Chemdah,’ ‘Kli Yakar,’ and others. HaRav Shmuel Laniado, who lived in Aram Tzova—Aleppo, Syria, wrote a comprehensive commentary on Sefer Yeshayahu. The original manuscript was printed after his passing, about 400 years ago, and became known as ‘Kli Paz.’ The passage presented to HaRav Kook aroused tremendous excitement, as it remarkably predicts events currently splashed across international headlines. HaRav Laniado wrote in his commentary on the passuk ‘כִּי זֶבַח לַיהוָה בְּבָצְרָהְ -‘For Hashem has a sacrifice in Botzrah’ (Yeshayahu 34:6). “There is a country far from Bavel whose name is Botzrah, and it is between the border of Assyria and Persia and between the border of the land of Edom—’Hormuz’—and it is today under the rule of the Yishamelim, and who knows the truth of these things—perhaps the war will be there at the end of days.” These words are chilling in light of the current geopolitical situation, as Iran has threatened to retaliate against the US by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil passageway. About a third of the world’s seaborne oil traffic passes through the strait from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and Bahrain, as well as liquefied natural gas from Qatar. The Strait of Hormuz is between Oman and Iran, which has a fleet of attack boats and thousands of missiles and naval mines, which it could use to threaten any ships that pass through. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday warned Iran against closing the Strait of Hormuz. “I can assure you, the administration is actively and closely monitoring the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, and the Iranian regime would be foolish to make that decision,” she said. HaRav Kook was very moved upon seeing the passage, and he said to his talmid, “Ashrecha that you were zocheh to such a revelation that may awaken thousands of Jews to teshuvah. It is a great zechus to publish it.” (YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)
HaRav Arie Kovalevcki, the Rosh Yeshivah of Hadras Melech, a yeshivah in Bnei Brak for bochurim from Spanish-speaking countries, went this week to the kollel of HaGaon HaRav Yitzchak Zilberstein together with his talmidim. The kollel, normally in Holon, is being temporarily housed in the Ramat Elchanan neighborhood of Bnei Brak. After Mincha, the Rosh Yeshivah and his talmidim gathered around HaRav Zilberstein, who was wrapped in a tallis and tefillin, since his minhag since the war began is to learn all day with tefillin on his head, and for Mincha, he donned a tallis. The Rosh Yeshivah told HaRav Zilberstein that the parents of the bochurim are nervous because of the war, and some of them want their sons to return home as soon as possible. The talmidim wanted to know what HaRav Zilberstein says about the matter. HaRav Zilberstein responded in a lengthy and emotional message, speaking directly to “the parents of the bochurim in Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, and Panama. One of the ikarei emunah is believing in bias Moshiach. If we await him every day, then don’t bring your sons home, especially during these days when we see the revelation of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in all His glory. We are seeing awesome things now. Who dreamed of this? Who thought that the Jews would so successfully instill fear in Iran?” “They killed every official and important figure there; they killed them all in one fell swoop. We see that Hashem—Hu Elokim. Now is the greatest time for the Jewish nation. Everyone needs to declare, ‘I believe in bias haMoshiach, and even though he may tarry, I’ll await him every day.’ “So, if that’s the case, I think that leaving your sons here now in Eretz Yisrael is a Kiddush Hashem, and it will help every father and mother who is worried, and they really do worry—and yet they leave their children here; they believe in bias haMoshiach.” “Believe me, the children need to stay here now! This is the greatest time there is. This is truly an awesome time, a time when we see the revelation of Elokim!” Therefore, I advise all the dear and esteemed parents to leave their sons here. Do not be afraid, they will not be harmed! They will only grow and grow and grow! And you will have nachas. Ashreichem and happy is your lot, ashreichim if you listen to me, and don’t bring them home. They should stay here, and you’ll daven for them, and in this zechus, you will have a long life.” (YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)
A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to restart swift removals of migrants to countries other than their homelands, lifting for now a court order requiring they get a chance to challenge the deportations. The high court majority did not detail its reasoning in the brief order, as is typical on its emergency docket. All three liberal justices joined a scathing dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin suggested third-country deportations could restart soon. “Fire up the deportation planes,” she said in a statement, calling the decision “a victory for the safety and security of the American people.” The court action came after immigration officials put eight people on a plane to South Sudan, though they later diverted to an American naval base in Djibouti after a judge stepped in. The migrants from countries including Myanmar, Vietnam and Cuba had been convicted of serious crimes in the U.S. Immigration officials have said that they were unable to return them quickly to their home countries. Their attorneys continued to press for a court order blocking their removal to South Sudan until they have a chance to talk with lawyers and raise concerns of “imprisonment, torture and even death there,” attorney Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance wrote. The case comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally. In her 19-page dissent, Sotomayor wrote that the court’s action exposes “thousands to the risk of torture or death” and gives the Trump administration a win despite earlier violating the lower court’s order. “The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard,” she wrote in the dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The Justice Department said in court documents the government is weighing the decision to decide its next steps. The Supreme Court action halts an order from U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston, who decided in April that people must get a chance to argue deportation to a third country would put them in danger — even if they’ve otherwise exhausted their legal appeals. He found that the May deportations to South Sudan violated his order and told immigration authorities to allow people to raise those concerns through their lawyers. Immigration officials housed the migrants in a converted shipping container in Djibouti, where they and the officers guarding them faced rough conditions. The administration has reached agreements with other countries, including Panama and Costa Rica, to house immigrants because some countries do not accept U.S. deportations. South Sudan, meanwhile, has endured repeated waves of violence since gaining independence in 2011. The migrants sent there in May got less than 16 hours’ notice, Sotomayor wrote. Murphy, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, didn’t prohibit deportations to third countries. But he found migrants must have a real chance to argue they could be in serious danger of torture if sent to another country. Another order in the same case resulted in the Trump administration returning a Guatemalan man who had been wrongly deported to Mexico, […]
Air Haifa announced Thursday it will begin operating outbound flights from Haifa Airport to Larnaca, Cyprus, marking the expansion of its services beyond current repatriation efforts. The northern-based airline has been running nine daily flights from Larnaca to Haifa as part of a national initiative to return Israeli citizens quickly and safely. The carrier confirmed that additional outbound flights from Haifa to Larnaca are now available for booking on its website for the upcoming weekend, from Saturday through Monday, June 28–30. One-way fares are listed at $360, excluding luggage. Meanwhile, Israeli airline Arkia has extended its daily repatriation operations through June 29, offering return flights from Paris, Vienna, Batumi, Tbilisi, Barcelona, Athens, Larnaca, Dubai, and Rome. Tickets can be purchased through Arkia’s website. In addition, Arkia has begun limited outbound service from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport to Paris, Vienna, Athens, and Larnaca. Under new government regulations, these flights are capped at 50 passengers per plane. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
