Housing Minister Yitzchak Goldknopf, leader of the Charedi United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party, has issued a stark ultimatum to the government, threatening to oppose the 2025 state budget unless it includes more than a billion shekels in coalition funding for Charedi yeshivos. His opposition would jeopardize the budget’s passage, potentially triggering early elections. This marks Goldknopf’s second threat to the coalition’s stability in less than a week and is the latest in a series of ultimatums from Charedi parties that have, so far, failed to materialize into action.

The Trump administration has approved a major nearly $3 billion arms sale to Israel, bypassing a normal congressional review to provide the country with more of the 2,000-pound bombs that it has used in the war against Hamas in Gaza. In a series of notifications sent to Congress late Friday, the State Department said it had signed off on the sale of more than 35,500 MK 84 and BLU-117 bombs and 4,000 Predator warheads worth $2.04 billion. Secretary of State Marco Rubio “has determined and provided detailed justification that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to the Government of Israel of the above defense articles and defense services in the national security interests of the United States, thereby waiving the Congressional review requirements,” the department said.

Kobi and Idit Ohel, the parents of Alon, 24, who is being held in inhumane conditions in Gaza, brought a Sefer Torah in their son’s room on Motzei Shabbos as a segulah for his swift return. Freed hostages Eli Sharabi and Or Levy revealed after their release last month that Alon suffered shrapnel injuries on October 7 to his shoulder, hand, and eye and can only see shadows from that eye. “This is what will bring Alon home,” his mother Idit said, touching the Sefer Torah. “Endless emunah and hope.” “One of the things that Aloni spoke about in captivity, as Eli Sharabi said, was  Kiddush on Friday nights,” Alon’s mother said. “Aloni will soon recite Kiddush on Friday at home, soon, soon, soon. He must come home and recite Kiddush.

US President Donal Trump invited freed hostage Eli Sharabi and other freed hostages to the White House, Eli’s brother Sharon Sharabi told Israel’s Channel 12 on Sunday. The US President’s invitation came after Trump watched Sharabi’s recent interview [with English subtitles] on Channel 12’s Uvda program. Sharon said that Eli is flying to Washington on Monday on philanthropist Miriam Adelson’s plane and will meet with Trump on Tuesday. In Sharabi’s interview with Uvda, he stated that he recited Shema Yisrael every morning from the time he was abducted, something he has never done before. “The power of emunah is astounding,” he added.

The Hamas terror group released a cruel psychological terror video on Shabbos showing freed hostage Yair Horn part from his brother Eitan who is still in captivity in Gaza. The Horn family has approved the publication of the video. In addition to Eitan and Yair Horn, the video shows Sagui Dekel-Chen, who was released two weeks ago with Yair, along with two other hostages whose faces were blurred in the video. One of the hostages whose face was blurred was identified by his family by the tattoo on his arm as Nimrod Cohen, a 20-year-old IDF soldier abducted from his tank at the Nachal Oz base on October 7.

For 16 months, Eli Sharabi endured a nightmare of chains, starvation, and relentless beatings at the hands of Hamas terrorists. Now free, he is sharing his harrowing experience—not for himself, but for those still trapped in captivity. Speaking in a lengthy televised interview Thursday night, Sharabi revealed the brutality and psychological torment he suffered, particularly as Hamas used their hostages as pawns, worsening their treatment whenever Palestinian prisoners faced tougher conditions in Israeli jails. “Every irresponsible statement—we were the first ones to suffer,” he said, describing how his captors would retaliate with hunger and violence. “They come to us and say, ‘They aren’t giving our prisoners food? You won’t eat. They’re beating our prisoners?

Ba’al Chessed Shai Graucher and members of the Palm Beach shul from Florida met this week with released US-Israeli hostage Keith Siegel, who told them how he connected with Yiddishkeit while he was in captivity, Ynet reported. As YWN reported, Keith’s daughter Shir said last week that her father connected to Yiddishkeit while in captivity through “small tefillos and reciting Borei Minei Mezonos, something he never did before in his life.” Keith explained that he connected to Hashem in captivity by reciting the words Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad and Baruch Shem Kevod Malchuso L’Olam V’Ed. Graucher responded: “I thought we were coming to give him chizzuk.

The Trump administration has completed a comprehensive review of U.S. foreign aid, identifying nearly 15,000 grants worth $60 billion for elimination, many of which, according to administration officials, were linked to organizations with questionable ties to terrorism. The findings, outlined in an internal State Department memo reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, highlight longstanding concerns about the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) financial oversight and funding priorities. The review, which covered both State Department and USAID grants, found that USAID accounted for the vast majority of the proposed cuts.

Further details of the heroism of Ori Danino, H’yd, who saved a number of people’s lives, including Omer Shem Tov, before being abducted to Gaza, were revealed by Eliya Cohen, one of the hostages released on Shabbos. Ori, z’l, was one of the six hostages brutally murdered in a Hamas tunnel in September 2024. Eliya’s father, Rabbi Elchanan Danino, told Yisrael Hayom: “Eliya told us that Ori wasn’t abducted in a normal way.

Defense Minister Yisrael Katz revealed on Thursday that Hamas planned on attacking yishuvim and IDF soldiers in Yehudah and Shomron and the seam line during the ceasefire. “Israel had information that Hamas was planning to attack soldiers and yishuvim – during the ceasefire,” Katz said at a conference of regional council heads. “Security forces seized Hamas ‘attack files’ targeting yishuvim in Yehudah, Shomron, and the seam line.” “The yishuvim in Yehudah and Shomron are the defensive wall of most of the State of Israel,” he emphasized. “When Yehudah and Shomron are protected, the major cities are protected.