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.

Members of the Pelerg Yerushalmi staged a protest in Jerusalem against the arrest of IDF draft evaders, blocking the intersection of Sarei Yisrael and Jaffa Streets and disrupting light rail operations. Initially, protest organizers announced plans to demonstrate near Route 4, but later changed the location, catching police forces off guard. Simultaneously, near Route 433 close to Modiin, police stopped a bus transporting another group of activists en route to the Jerusalem protest. The demonstrators briefly blocked the road after disembarking but dispersed shortly afterward.

Four of the eight suspects, including seven Iranians, who were arrested over the weekend in the UK for an alleged plot to attack an unspecified target in London, were “hours away” from committing a major attack, UK media outlets reported on Monday. According to the reports, speculation is rising that the target was a shul or another Jewish target. The government called the suspects the biggest “counter-state threat and counterterrorism” operations for years. It said the premises were being given “advice and support.” The Israel-based IntelliTimes blog reported that the UK confirmed that the attack was planned against a “major Jewish target,” adding that in such a case,  Israeli intelligence agents were likely involved in helping to foil the plot.

The IDF on Monday morning announced that a reserve soldier was killed on Sunday morning in an operational accident near the Gaza border. He was identified as Sgt. Maj. (res.) Dejen Daniel Sahalo, H’yd, 41, from Rechovot. He served as a heavy equipment operator in the Combat Engineering Corps’ 5067th Battalion. He was killed in the overturning of a military truck near Kibbutz Nachal Oz. Reservist forces from the Jerusalem Brigade are currently operating in the area to expand the buffer zone in the northern Gaza Strip. The IDF said that it is investigating the incident. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

By December 31, 2025, a seismic shift in Israel’s mobile infrastructure will sever lifelines for up to a million users, including tens of thousands of Charedim, unless swift action is taken. In what could become one of the most disruptive transitions in Israeli tech history, the Ministry of Communications is mandating a full shutdown of the country’s aging 2G and 3G cellular networks. While framed as a necessary leap toward high-speed 4G and 5G, the move risks plunging vulnerable populations—especially the elderly, low-income families, and Charedim—into sudden, silent isolation. The shutdown isn’t just a technical milestone.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas accused Hamas-affiliated gangs of looting humanitarian aid in Gaza, calling the theft a national disgrace during a time of immense suffering. “The looting and theft carried out by criminal gangs targeting warehouses and storage facilities of humanitarian aid is unacceptable,” Abbas said in remarks published Friday by the P.A.’s official Wafa news agency. Abbas pointed the finger squarely at “Hamas-affiliated gangs,” accusing them of being “primarily responsible” for pillaging the aid meant for Gaza’s war-ravaged civilians.

A baby girl was born on Friday—just before Shabbos—to the almanah of R’ Raphael Mordechai ben R’ Moshe Fishoff Hy”d, who was brutally murdered in a terror attack in Hadera this past Erev Yom Kippur. The newborn is the seventh child in the Fishoff family and will, heartbreakingly, never meet her father—an exceptional talmid chacham who gave his life al kiddush Hashem. R’ Raphael Mordechai, just 35 years old at the time of his murder, was stabbed in a horrific multi-location terror attack on October 10, 2024. He was critically wounded and later succumbed to his injuries at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, leaving behind a grieving wife and six yesomim. Now, just months later, his widow gave birth to a baby girl.

The ballistic missile launched on Sunday morning by the Houthis from Yemen towards Israel evaded two layers of advanced aerial defense systems and fell in a field near Terminal 3 near Ben Gurion Airport. The first interception was carried out using an interceptor from the Israeli Arrow 3 long-range air defense, but it failed to hit the target. Another interceptor was launched from the American THAAD system. According to senior officials in Israel, the missile that hit Ben Gurion was not a new or particularly advanced missile, but a known model that has been intercepted in the past. The IDF is conducting an investigation to examine the incident, including an assessment of whether the interception failure was due to a technical malfunction or human error.

Tens of thousands of cyclists will bike through New York City tomorrow for the 47th Annual TD Five Boro Bike Tour. The first wave of riders will start at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, May 4, with subsequent waves departing at 8:30 a.m., 9:15 a.m., 9:50 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. The tour takes participants on a 40-mile ride from Lower Manhattan, through the Bronx, over to Queens and down through Brooklyn to Staten Island. Five Boro Bike Tour street closures The route closes to vehicular traffic at 7:15 a.m. Sixth Avenue will reopen to cars at noon. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge will be open with significant road closures to accommodate the bike tour. Motorists should expect delays. The Staten Island-bound lower level of the bridge will be closed to vehicles from 12:01 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday.

Missile alert sirens blared in several locations in Israel at about 6:30 a.m. on Shabbos morning, including Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh, Modi’in, the Negev, and the Dead Sea area. The missile, launched by the Houthis in Yemen, was successfully intercepted by Israel’s missile defense forces. A 26-year-old man was lightly injured while rushing to a protected area. The Houthis launched two missiles at northern Israel on Friday. (YWN’s Jerusalem desk is keeping you updated after tzeis ha’Shabbos in Israel)