RAFAH, Gaza — The Israeli military announced that two IDF soldiers were killed and two others wounded in a devastating explosion caused by a booby-trapped tunnel shaft in southern Gaza’s Rafah on Saturday. The fallen soldiers were identified as Captain Noam David, 23, from Sha’arei Tikva, and Staff Sergeant Yaly Seror, 20, from Omer. Both served in the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit, known for its specialized operations. According to an initial IDF investigation, the Yahalom soldiers, operating under the Golani Brigade, were scanning the entrance to a tunnel inside a building when the explosion occurred. One of the wounded soldiers is reported to be in moderate condition, while the other’s condition was not specified.

YWN regrets to inform you of the petirah of Rabbi Sholom Lipskar zt”l, the longtime Rav of The Shul of Bal Harbour and founder of the Aleph Institute, who was niftar after decades of transformative avodas hakodesh and recent medical complications. He was approximately 77 years old. Rabbi Lipskar, born in 1946 in Tashkent in the former Soviet Union, was a lifelong servant of Klal Yisrael. As a baby, he was miraculously smuggled across the Soviet border and taken to a Displaced Persons (DP) camp in Germany, before eventually settling with his family in Ontario, Canada. His early life, marked by mesirus nefesh, shaped a neshama that would later inspire countless Jews across the globe.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held a security assessment on Friday before the start of Shabbos, at which a decision was made to significantly expand the military operaton in Gaza in light of the failure to reach a new hostage release deal with Hamas. The plans do not include the conquest of the entire Strip, but rather a significant step up in military activity, with the hope that increased military pressure will create leverage for a hostage release deal. The IDF is preparing to call up tens of thousands of reservists beginning on Sunday.

In a heartwarming update, 4-year-old Pinchas Raphael ben Sara (Saada) has returned home following a miraculous recovery from a horrific car accident in Flatbush that claimed the lives of his mother and two sisters a few weeks ago. Initially listed in critical condition, Pinchas’ survival and return home on Friday afternoon, are being attributed to the fervent tefillos of Klal Yisroel, bringing joy and gratitude to the community. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

President Donald Trump said Friday that he will revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status, the latest move in the escalating clash between the administration and the Ivy League school. “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. The president had previously suggested the university should lose its tax-exempt status. His latest statement came after Harvard sued the administration over its decision to freeze more than $2 billion in funding to the Ivy League school. The administration claimed the university was refusing to follow the administration’s demands that it take actions aimed at ending antisemitism on campus.

President Donald Trump’s nuclear negotiations with Iran bear striking resemblance to the very deal he famously tore up in 2018, Reuters reports. The rapid commencement of talks last month has stunned regional allies, most notably Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had arrived in Washington expecting a green light for military action against Iran — only to learn hours before a joint appearance that the U.S. was heading back to the negotiating table. Since then, three rounds of high-level U.S.–Iranian talks have taken place with a fourth expected soon in Rome.

The IDF successfully intercepted a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis in Yemen at northern Israel early Friday morning, triggering sirens in the Upper and Lower Galil, Haifa and its suburbs, Binyamina, and the Jezreel Valley. The missile was successfully intercepted before it entered Israel. However, shrapnel from an interceptor missile hit a kindergarten in Mishmar HaEmek, penetrating the roof of the building and falling into the kindergarten. B’Chasdei Hashem, no one was injured as the kindergarten has not yet opened for the day. Shai Regev, the head of education at Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek, was quoted by Ynet as saying. “It’s a huge neis. The children could have been injured if this had happened while the kindergarten was open.

Iran’s once-grand plan to transform post-war Syria into a loyal regional satellite has collapsed in dramatic fashion, according to a trove of confidential documents obtained by Reuters from the Iranian embassy in Damascus. The blueprint, drawn up in 2022, envisioned Tehran embedding itself deep into Syria’s economy, politics, and security apparatus. But the sudden fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 has left those ambitions in ruins. The newly installed Syrian government, composed largely of rebel factions hostile to Tehran, has moved to dismantle Iran’s presence. Iranian military officers, diplomats, and economic envoys have withdrawn from Damascus. Cultural centers funded by Tehran have shuttered.

China accused the United States on Wednesday of being the true source of COVID-19, as tensions over the origins of the virus once again flared into the international spotlight. The accusation came in the form of a sharply worded white paper released by the Chinese government, claiming that the U.S. is “shamelessly politicizing” the pandemic and attempting to deflect from its own failings. Beijing’s fiery rebuttal followed a recent push from the White House suggesting that the virus likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where gain-of-function research was allegedly being conducted.

During a National Day of Prayer event at the White House today, President  Trump disclosed a grim update on the Gaza hostage situation, stating that fewer than 24 of the 59 hostages are believed to be alive. “Out of 59, you had 24 that were living, and now I understand that it’s not even that number,” Trump remarked, highlighting a significant reduction in the previously reported figure. Israel has long maintained that 24 of the 59 hostages held in Gaza were alive, but this week, Sara Netanyahu, wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, publicly corrected her husband during an event, noting the number was lower than the official count. The prime minister had stated there were “up to 24” living hostages, reflecting uncertainty in the figures amid ongoing tensions.