Bashar al-Assad has broken his silence and claims Vladimir Putin forced his cowardly escape from Syria on him. The ousted leader said from Moscow he had no intention of fleeing the Syria but had to after the Russian base he was staying in was being bombed. The statement was published on the Syrian presidency’s Telegram channel and dated December 16 and was Assad’s first in public since he was toppled more than a week ago by a rebel offensive. Assad said he stayed in Damascus until the early hours of Sunday December 8 until “terrorist forces infiltrated Damascus”. He then claims he moved to the Russian air base in Lattakia, named Kheimim, to oversee the fighting of the rebels. But just house later the base itself came under drone strikes.

El Al has been named the fifth-worst airline in the world, according to the 2024 AirHelp ranking of global airlines. The rankings, released in December, placed El Al 105th out of 109 airlines evaluated. AirHelp, a global database for flight performance and passenger experience, assessed airlines on criteria including claims processing, punctuality, and customer reviews. El Al scored 0.1 in claims handling, 5.7 in punctuality, and 8 in customer satisfaction, reflecting significant gaps in performance, particularly in claims processing. While Brussels Airlines topped the list with high scores across all categories, El Al ranked just above Bulgaria Air, with Tunisair finishing in last place.

The leader of the Bnei Torah movement (Peleg Yerushalmi), Hagaon HaRav Asher Deutsch, z’tl, who also served as the Rosh Yeshivah of Ponevezh, was niftar on Monday morning at the age of 79. HaRav Deutsch was suffering in recent months from a serious illness and was hospitalized a number of times. On Friday,  his condition became critical and his family and talmidim were called to part from him. But then his condition unexpectedly improved but worsened again on Monday morning. The Rav was born in Bnei Brak. As a bochur, he learned in Yeshivas Ponevezh, where he became close to Hagaon HaRav Elazar Man Shach, z’tl, and HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Rozovosky, ztl. After he married, he was appointed by HaGaon HaRav Chaim Kahaneman, the Nasi of Ponevezh, to seve as the Rosh Mesivta of the yeshivah.

Iraqi sources told the UK-based Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news outlet over the weekend that Iranian Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani received a cold shoulder from Iraqi militias on his visit to Baghdad last week to discuss the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria. “Qaani met with several leaders of armed groups to discuss developments regarding the new situation in Syria and the determination of the Israeli entity to attack sites and occupy parts of Syria,” the source said. “Some of the faction leaders informed Qaani of their commitment to Iraq’s neutral position in the current crisis, saying that don’t want to become involved in opening new fronts and are waiting to see how things will unfold.” This development is a significant setback for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Syrian media reported early Monday morning on an unusually intense Israeli attack late Sunday night near the coastal city of Tartus in northwestern Syria, targeting arms depots. The strike caused the warehouses to go up in flames, and the explosion, described as the strongest in more than a decade, also led to an earthquake, some reports said. The Geographic Survey of Israel’s seismology department reported a 3.1-magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale at 11:49 p.m. but there is no proof that the quake was caused by the strikes. The IDF also carried out airstrikes in Aleppo and Hamas overnight, targeting air defense systems and surface-to-surface missiles. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

An 11-year-old girl from Sierra Leone was found floating in the Mediterranean Sea off Italy’s southernmost island of Lampedusa, believed to be the only survivor of a shipwrecked migrant boat that had departed from the port of Sfax in Tunisia, a humanitarian group said Thursday. The girl was saved by a German-flagged sailboat named Trotamar III, which brought her to Lampedusa on Wednesday morning, according to the German charity Compass Collective that has been operating in the Mediterranean Sea since August 2023. She had neither food nor water with her, and was suffering from hypothermia. “It was an incredible coincidence that we heard the voice of a girl even though the motors were running,’’ the sailboat’s captain, Matthias Weidenluebbert, said in a press statement.

The U.S. has updated a decades-old science and technology agreement with China to reflect their growing rivalry for technological dominance. The new agreement, signed Friday in Beijing after many months of negotiations, has a narrower scope and additional safeguards to minimize the risk to national security. The State Department said the agreement sustains intellectual property protections, establishes new guardrails to protect the safety and security of researchers and “advances U.S. interests through newly established and strengthened provisions on transparency and data reciprocity.” It covers only basic research and does not facilitate the development of critical and emerging technologies, the department said.

A former FBI informant accused of falsely claiming that President Joe Biden and his son Hunter accepted bribes has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges, according to court papers filed Thursday. As part of the plea deal with Justice Department special counsel David Weiss, Alexander Smirnov will admit he fabricated that the story that became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry in Congress. The plea agreement comes just weeks after prosecutors filed new tax evasion charges against Smirnov. The two sides will recommend a sentence of at least two years behind bars and no more than six years, according to the agreement. David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, attorneys for Smirnov, said they will make their case for a fair sentence in court and declined to comment further.

Over 10,000 people gathered in on Sunday night to celebrate the completion of Mesechta Shabbos and the start of Mesechta Eiruvin as part of Dirshu’s Daf HaYomi B’Amud program. People traveled from across the UK and Europe. The event was held under heavy security is expected. The massive event was held at the Copper Box Arena. A full article will be published shortly, but here is a taste of the beautiful singing and dancing at the event. A moving performance by Zanvil Weinberger singing the hit by the late Dedi Graucher, Z”L “Ratzah HaKadosh Baruch Hu” – performed at the Dirshu event in London. A stunning performance featuring Motty Steinmetz, Zanvil, Hershy Weinberg, and Baruch Levine, accompanied by the Malchus Choir.

After insurgents toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad this month, many senior officials and members of his dreaded intelligence and security services appear to have melted away. Activists say some of them have managed to flee the country while others went to hide in their hometowns. For more than five decades, the Assad family has ruled Syria with an iron grip, locking up those who dared question their power in the country’s notorious prisons, where rights groups say inmates were regularly tortured or killed. The leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham insurgent group — which led anti-government fighters who forced Assad from power — has vowed to bring those who carried out such abuses to justice.