A lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court alleges that United Airlines diverted a transatlantic flight mid-air not because of a safety issue — but because the plane was filled with visibly Jewish passengers. The April 22, 2023, flight from Newark to Tel Aviv was abruptly turned back to New Jersey “after hours of flight for no valid reason,” according to the suit, which names nearly 60 Jewish passengers as plaintiffs. The passengers, many of whom were traveling to Israel for Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut, claim that anti-Jewish bias played a key role in the crew’s decision. According to the complaint, the incident began when one Jewish passenger briefly sat in a flight attendant’s jump seat while waiting to use the restroom.

Israeli security officials said that Israel will respond forcefully to the Houthi ballistic missile attack that hit Ben-Gurion Airport on Sunday morning, Kan News reported. In recent months, Israel has refrained from attacking Yemen at the request of the United States. An Israeli source even claimed that “every day since the start of the US operation, the American attacks are about 10 times what we can do in Yemen in a year.” But in light of the escalation in attacks from Yemen over the weekend, including four ballistic missiles and two UAVs, including the hit on Ben Gurion Airport, Israel is no longer willing to ignore the attacks.

The ballistic missile fired by the Houthis in Yemen that hit the Ben-Gurion Airport compound on Sunday morning, injuring six people, halted incoming and outgoing flights for about an hour. In the wake of the incident, a number of airlines canceled their flights to Israel on Sunday for the next 48 hours, including Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Swiss Air, and Wizz Air. American carriers United and Delta—both of which had only recently resumed flights to Israel—have also canceled their flights, along with France’s Transavia and its Air France, Air Canada, Japan’s Nippon Airways, Spain’s Air Europa, and British Airways. Delta Air Lines cancelled its flight on Sunday from New York to Tel Aviv, as well as its returning Monday flight.

The Houthis in Yemen fired a missile at central Israel on Sunday morning, triggering sirens across central Israel, the Shefela, Shomron and the Jerusalem area. In a first, shrapnel from the missile fell in the Ben-Gurion airport area, which was packed with passengers returning from the March of the Living ceremonies held in Europe for Yom HaShoah. According to the MDA spokesperson, several people were lightly injured from the blast near Terminal 3, and there was extensive property damage in the area. It was the first time in two weeks that a missile was launched at central Israel. Following the incident, the IDF confirmed that it failed to intercept the missile although air missile defense forces made several attempts to do so. The incident is under investigation.

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.