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The Israeli cabinet has resolved to postpone the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the circumstances that enabled the October 7th massacre, opting to delay action despite Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara’s insistence that an immediate decision was needed.

In a formal communication addressed to the Prime Minister and other ministers, Baharav-Miara emphasized that “a state commission of inquiry is the proper mechanism considering the issues discussed, the commission’s authority, and its expertise.”

Nevertheless, the cabinet dismissed the recommendation, citing the current military escalation in Gaza as justification for holding off on a probe. “Now is not the time to investigate,” the ministers concluded in their decision.

Instead of launching a commission straightaway, the cabinet said that it and the Knesset would begin the process of drafting legislation that would “create a special state commission of inquiry that will represent the various opinions and will be trusted by the majority of the public.”

This approach carries weighty implications, as passing a dedicated law to form such a commission is a complex and potentially time-consuming legislative process.

Additionally, the cabinet informed the Supreme Court that it intends to submit an update on the matter within 90 days, instead of by the May 11th deadline previously set by the Attorney General.

Responding to the delay, Opposition Leader MK Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid said: “The only meaning of not establishing a commission of inquiry is that October 7th will happen again and again.”

Lapid further criticized the Prime Minister for similarly trying to avoid investigations in previous cases such as the Meron tragedy and the Submarine Scandal. However, he insisted, “A state commission of inquiry will certainly be created.”

{Matzav.com Israel}

Photographer Doug Mills wins the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography with this photo of President Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

President Trump signs Executive Order to rebuild U.S. prescription drug manufacturing.

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday repeatedly invoked the Constitution and said it is what “binds us all together” after receiving the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. Pence received the award for his refusal to go along with President Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election. The award recognizes Pence “for putting his life and career on the line to ensure the constitutional transfer of presidential power on Jan. 6, 2021,” the JFK Library Foundation said. “To forge a future together, we have to find common ground,” Pence said. “I hope in some small way my presence here tonight is a reminder that whatever differences we may have as Americans, the Constitution is the common ground on which we stand. It’s what binds us across time and generations. …. It’s what makes us one people.” His comments came hours after an interview with Trump aired in which he was asked whether U.S. citizens and noncitizens both deserve due process as laid out in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. Trump was noncommittal. “I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” Trump said when pressed in an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker. It was taped Friday at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida and aired Sunday. Pence never mentioned Trump during his 10-minute speech but made several references to the Trump administration. Referencing what he called “these divided times, in these anxious days,” he acknowledged that he probably had differences with the Democrats in the room but also with his own Republican Party “on spending, tariffs and my belief that America is the leader of the free world and must stand with Ukraine until the Russian invasion is repelled and a just and lasting peace is secured.” Trump pressured Pence to reject election results from swing states where the Republican president falsely claimed the vote was marred by fraud. Pence refused, saying he lacked such authority. When a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, some chanted that they wanted to “hang Mike Pence.” Pence was whisked away by Secret Service agents, narrowly avoiding a confrontation with the rioters. “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify,” Trump wrote at the time on X, formerly Twitter, as rioters moved through the Capitol and Pence was in hiding with his family, aides and security detail inside the building. Pence rejected the Secret Service’s advice that he leave the Capitol, staying to continue the ceremonial election certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential victory once rioters were cleared. In describing his role, Pence told the audience that “by God’s grace I did my duty that day to support the peaceful transfer of power under the Constitution of the United States of America.” “Jan. 6 was a tragic day but it became a triumph of freedom. History will record that our institutions held,” he said in his speech. “Leaders in both chambers, in both political parties reconvened the very same day and finished democracy’s work under the Constitution.” JFK’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, who along with his grandson Jack […]

President Trump is presented with an Electoral College vote record for the 2024 election from the House of Representatives:

Massive fires are currently raging at Hodeidah Port, Yemen after tonight’s heavy Israeli airstrikes.

New wild footage shows the massive Israeli airstrikes targeting Yemen tonight.

A Jewish man from Turkey has been taken into custody after traveling to Israel in April, according to a report by the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS).

Umut Ataseven, 29, who had been employed as a visa and passport officer for Turkish Airlines at Istanbul Airport, spent several days in Israel as a tourist from April 6 through April 12. While there, he uploaded a photo to social media showing himself posing with an Israeli flag in Tel Aviv.

The image sparked backlash on X, with users falsely claiming that Ataseven was an Israeli national, a soldier in the IDF, and involved in what they described as a “genocide” being carried out in Gaza.

After returning to Turkey, Ataseven was immediately dismissed from his position at Turkish Airlines and was placed under arrest just a few hours later. Although he was released shortly after, he is still facing legal action. He is now required to check in with police twice weekly and is barred from leaving the country.

Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule, Turkey has increasingly embraced Islamist policies and authoritarian governance. Since the Hamas-led atrocities on October 7, Erdogan has aligned himself with.

{Matzav.com}

Several dozen roshei yeshiva representing the Litvish, Chassidish, and Sefardic Torah worlds in Eretz Yisroel gathered on Monday at the home of the venerable sar haTorah, Maran Rav Dov Landau shlit”a, to confront the escalating gezeiros against yeshivos. With government threats looming — including the potential arrest of yeshiva bochurim for refusing army enlistment — the rabbanim convened to deliberate next steps. After lengthy discussion, a consensus was reached: the situation demands immediate international action. Plans are now underway for a second Keren Olam HaTorah mission to the United States, following the historic success of last year’s campaign. Despite his advanced age of 95 and recent surgery following a broken bone, Rav Dov shlit”a expressed an unwavering desire to participate once again, saying he wants to do everything he can for Keren Olam HaTorah. Rav Dov requested tefillos from the tzibbur that he should have the strength to travel once more to America on behalf of the yeshivos. The meeting was marked by remarkable achdus, with roshei yeshiva from all backgrounds joining together with one voice and one mission: to secure the future of Torah in Eretz Yisroel. Askanim involved say the trip is tentatively planned for shortly after Shavuos. Last year’s inaugural campaign brought in over $100 million for yeshivos and drew tens of thousands of participants to events across the U.S., Canada, and South America. Updates on the campaign and Rav Dov’s health will be forthcoming in the weeks ahead. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

A radar and communication outage at Newark Liberty International Airport left air traffic controllers blind and deaf for a harrowing minute and a half, according to a source who spoke with The New York Post. The cause was reportedly a burnt copper wire that shorted out a critical system.

The breakdown, which occurred on April 28, incapacitated the Federal Aviation Administration’s control capabilities and has since led several air traffic controllers at the Philadelphia operations center to take leave due to psychological distress, according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA).

United Airlines has placed the blame for widespread delays at Newark — the second most active airport in the New York metro area — on the FAA, citing that roughly 20% of controllers “walked off the job” after the incident. The airline says this staffing gap forced them to cancel dozens of flights daily.

“Air traffic controllers in Area C of the Philadelphia TRACON (PHL), who are responsible for separating and sequencing aircraft in and out of Newark Airport (EWR), temporarily lost radar and communications with the aircraft under their control, unable to see, hear, or talk to them,” a NATCA spokesperson explained in a statement.

Those affected by the situation took time off under the Federal Employees Compensation Act, which provides support for federal workers who suffer physical or emotional trauma due to work-related incidents.

Since the start of the crisis last Friday, Newark Liberty has seen over 400 flight cancellations and nearly 2,000 delayed departures and arrivals.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) demanded a federal probe into the incident, noting the scale of the disruption at an airport that handled 49 million passengers last year.

“The technology is old and must be updated. One of the things that happened at Newark is a copper wire burnt. Why are we using copper wire in 2025? Have they heard of fiber?” Schumer remarked.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also criticized the FAA’s outdated technology as a key reason for the chaos.

“We use floppy disks. We use copper wires,” he said. “The system that we’re using is not effective to control the traffic that we have in the airspace today.”

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby addressed the airline’s customers in a letter, stating that the relocation of Newark’s control operations to Philadelphia last summer was intended to alleviate traffic congestion at other nearby airports, but staffing issues have plagued the facility for years. He also identified the technical malfunction as the trigger for the cascading problems.

Kirby announced that United would be trimming its Newark schedule by 35 roundtrip flights per day and reiterated the claim that 20% of the airport’s controllers had “walked off the job” following the incident. That claim, however, was strongly denied by the controllers’ union.

{Matzav.com}

New York Attorney General Letitia James is backing federal intervention in a case she says exposes “profoundly disturbing” discrimination against Orthodox Jews in the Town of Forestburgh, NY — a small Hudson Valley municipality now at the center of an explosive civil rights battle. In a letter sent Monday to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Attorney General James threw her support behind federal involvement in Lost Lake Holdings, LLC v. Town of Forestburgh, a lawsuit alleging that town officials deliberately weaponized zoning laws and administrative red tape to block a major housing development intended for Chasidic Jewish families. “The assertion that the Town of Forestburgh denied land use applications based on the religious identity of the developers and the potential use of the property by Orthodox Jewish residents is profoundly disturbing,” James wrote, urging prosecutors to enforce the Fair Housing Act and other federal anti-discrimination statutes. The letter follows a March filing by the U.S. Department of Justice, which issued a scathing Statement of Interest in support of the developers, arguing that the town’s actions amount to systemic religious discrimination. DOJ attorneys allege that Forestburgh officials—motivated by anti-Semitic bias—reopened a 14-year-old environmental review, imposed inflated tax assessments, and repeatedly denied building permits in a coordinated effort to sabotage a 2,627-home project by Lost Lake Holdings. Internal emails cited by the DOJ reveal the chilling extent of the town’s animus. In one, a planning board chair urged colleagues, “Don’t be scared about the Hasidic threat—we’re energized and have the cash to fight and make their lives miserable.” Another widely circulated email called Orthodox Jews a “sect notorious for misogyny and child abuse,” warning of their community’s alleged “destruction” of Forestburgh. Attorney General James has previously demanded that Forestburgh revise Local Law 3, which imposes what her office described as discriminatory zoning restrictions specifically targeting houses of worship and Orthodox Jewish residents. Agudath Israel of America has also been active in challenging the town’s conduct. Representatives including Rabbis Avi Schnall, Yeruchim Silber, and Shragi Greenbaum, along with klal askan Chaskel Bennett and the Sullivan County JCC, have all spoken out before the town board — only to be ignored. The lawsuit alleges millions in lost revenue and reputational damage for Lost Lake Holdings, while raising urgent concerns about the weaponization of local government against minority faith groups. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

A teenager who admitted being “addicted to speed” behind the wheel had totaled two other cars in the year before he slammed into a minivan at 112 mph (180 kph) in a Seattle suburb, killing the driver and three of the five children she was transporting for a homeschool co-op. After sentencing Chase Daniel Jones last month to more than 17 years in prison, the judge tacked on a novel condition should he drive again: His vehicle must be equipped with a device that prevents accelerating far beyond the speed limit. Virginia this year became the first state to give its judges such a tool to deal with the most dangerous drivers on the road. Washington, D.C., already is using it and similar measures await governors’ signatures in Washington state and Georgia. New York and California also could soon tap the GPS-based technology to help combat a recent national spike in traffic deaths. “It’s a horror no one should have to experience,” said Amy Cohen, who founded the victims’ advocacy group Families for Safe Streets after her 12-year-old son, Sammy Cohen Eckstein, was killed by a speeding driver in front of their New York home more than a decade ago. Turning tragedy into activism Andrea Hudson, 38, the minivan driver who was killed when Jones ran a red light, was building a backyard greenhouse with her husband to help educate several kids who shuttle between homes during the school day, her father, Ted Smith, said. Also killed in the March 2024 crash near Hudson’s home in Renton, Washington, were Boyd “Buster” Brown and Eloise Wilcoxson, both 12, and Matilda Wilcoxson, 13. Hudson’s two children were sitting on the passenger side and survived, but they spent weeks in a hospital. “You always hear of these horrific accidents, and it’s always far away, you don’t know anybody. But all of a sudden, that’s my daughter,” Smith said. “This guy did not swerve or brake. And it was just a missile.” Smith knew Washington state Rep. Mari Leavitt, who reached out to offer condolences and tell him she was sponsoring legislation to mandate intelligent speed assistance devices as a condition for habitual speeders to get back their suspended licenses. Leavitt predicts it will have an even more powerful impact than revoking driving privileges, citing studies showing around three-quarters of people who lose their licenses get behind a wheel anyway. Between 2019 and 2024, the state saw a 200% increase in drivers cited for going at least 50 mph (80 kph) over the speed limit, according to the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. “I guess I don’t understand why someone is compelled to want to drive that fast,” Leavitt said. “But if they choose to drive that fast with the speed limiter, they can’t. It’s going to stop them in their tracks.” The measure, which Washington legislators passed last month and Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson is expected to soon sign, is called the BEAM Act, using the first letters of the names of the four victims: Buster, Eloise, Andrea and Matilda. Because Jones, 19, didn’t receive a speeding ticket in his two previous crashes, he likely wouldn’t have been required to use the speed-limiter ahead of the fatal one. And because it could be 2029 before the law takes effect, the judge’s requirement at sentencing only applies to his time on probation after being released from […]

At a gathering of his political faction, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir outlined a new approach to the issue of humanitarian aid for Gaza.

“The only aid that should enter Gaza is to allow them voluntary emigration. As long as we have hostages languishing in tunnels, I don’t understand why we are even discussing this,” said Ben-Gvir.

He emphasized that no form of humanitarian relief should be granted by any means. “Aid should not be allowed through humanitarian organizations, private organizations, or assistance through the IDF. As long as there are hostages, the enemy should not receive food, electricity, or any other assistance.”

{Matzav.com Israel}

Democrats gear up for more visits to El Salvador and even Honduras to visit deported criminal aliens.

TOM HOMAN: on the Trump admin urging illegals to self-deport: “It’s now being pushed out in multimedia settings — that you can leave on your own… Or we’ll come find you and we can remove you based on our schedule and our standards.”

The Israeli Air Force has released images of fighter jets fueling up for the airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen, with 20 fighter jets dropping 50 munitions on Hodeidah port and a concrete factory near Bajil, supported by refuelers and spy planes.

Starting tonight, IDF forces will commence demolishing 106 terrorist structures in Tulkarm’s terror camps.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu released a video message on Monday in which he tackled two key issues: the push for a formal inquiry into the October 7 failures and the security cabinet’s resolution to escalate military operations.

Speaking about the military campaign, Netanyahu explained that the cabinet’s move to ramp up the war effort came at the urging of IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir. “We decided on intensified action in Gaza,” Netanyahu said. “That was the chief of staff’s recommendation—to move, as he said, toward the defeat of Hamas. He believes this will also help us rescue the hostages. I agree with him. We are not letting up on this effort and will not give up on anyone.”

Turning to calls for an official investigation into what went wrong on October 7, Netanyahu expressed openness but stressed that the timing must be right. “We need to do this, but after the war ends,” he said.

He emphasized that the focus must remain on the upcoming offensive in Gaza, which is being carried out following recommendations from top military leaders. “We are on the eve of a major operation in Gaza, as recommended by the General Staff. Afterward, we will examine this, and we need to investigate the political echelon from the prime minister down. I demand this. For this to work, it needs to be a committee accepted by the entire public, a special state investigation committee that reflects different opinions,” Netanyahu said.

{Matzav.com Israel}

Central Berlin was in ruins after the Red Army completed the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in an intense fight for the capital in May 1945. After decades of division and its revival as the capital of a reunited, democratic Germany, the city is now transformed, blending painstakingly restored buildings with modern architecture. But the scars of the past remain visible in many places: facades riddled with holes from bullets and shrapnel, or gaps in rows of houses sometimes plugged by new buildings. An Associated Press story from May 9, 1945, painted a stark picture. It read: “This town is a city of the dead. As a metropolis it has simply ceased to exist. Every house within miles of the center seems to have had its own bomb.” Berlin, the epicenter of Adolf Hitler’s power, was the ultimate prize as the Allies closed in from east and west on the disintegrating German defenses in the final stage of World War II. “We all had a little case next to the bed, even the children,” recalled Eva-Maria Kolb, now 89, of the constant aerial bombing in the last six months of the war. “When there was an air raid warning you had to pull something on quickly and then go down to the basement.” The final Battle of Berlin in late April and early May 1945 reduced much of what was left of the city to rubble. The Soviet military attacked from several directions with an enormous concentration of troops, who faced a struggle to cross rivers and canals and an intensifying street fight as they moved deeper and deeper into the city. On April 25, Berlin was encircled. Hitler killed himself in his bunker on April 30; and on May 2, the commander of German military forces in Berlin, Gen. Helmuth Weidling, capitulated to Soviet forces. “Berlin was a heap of rubble — because of these last 10 days, almost everything in the center was ruined,” said Jörg Morré, the director of the Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, located in the building where Germany’s final surrender was signed. But “the infrastructure could be repaired relatively quickly — the sewerage system wasn’t so badly damaged. They managed to get the water supply and pipes going again. A lot of old Berliners are still familiar with hand pumps … electricity came, so that the trams starting running again, and the commuter trains.” Kolb said: “It was, of course, a great relief in ‘45 that the war was over and Hitler was no longer alive … everyone who wasn’t a Nazi was very, very grateful that the war was over.” She recalled that parts of the city were rubble, but she went to a school in the Tempelhof district, south of the center, “that was only half-ruined. It no longer had a roof and the second or third floor was missing — but we had lessons. Only when it rained were lessons canceled.” ‘This marked the end’ Post-war Berlin was divided into sectors controlled by the wartime allies. That hardened into a Cold War division that saw two separate German states founded in 1949 and ultimately led to the building in 1961 of the Berlin Wall, which fell 28 years later as communist rule collapsed in East Germany. Germany was reunited in 1990 and the national government moved to Berlin in 1999. Parliament […]

Israeli fighter jets are conducting aerial strikes over Yemen Monday night, following a missile attack the previous day in which a projectile fired by the Houthi militia targeted Ben Gurion Airport. An Israeli source has confirmed the airstrikes are underway.

The operation is focused on dismantling Houthi assets and military infrastructure. The Houthis are widely seen as an extension of Iranian influence in the region. According to a report by Al-Arabiya, over 30 Israeli warplanes are taking part in the mission.

The Houthis have issued a statement alleging that the offensive is being jointly carried out by Israeli and American forces in the port city of Hodeidah.

Sunday afternoon’s attack involved a ballistic missile launched from Yemen that traveled a significant distance before landing near Israel’s main international airport.

The impact site was close to a runway at Ben Gurion Airport, striking an unpopulated area but injuring six individuals. The incident led to flight disruptions, with some airlines choosing to cancel incoming and outgoing routes temporarily.

{Matzav.com Israel}