Footage from the cockpit of a Il-76 with the IRGC’s Aerospace Force flying at extremely low altitude to drop water as well as fire retardant on the still ongoing chemical fire at the port of Bandar Abbas in Southern Iran.

A month ago I wrote a letter to Yeshiva World trying to give some context and support to the new Shidduch initiative. I wrote it as a complete outsider to any and all efforts to help with the Shidduch crisis, with my only connection being a witness to the suffering it causes to so many. I wrote the letter simply frustrated with the criticism of people who, before even hearing what the plan is, rush to criticize an effort that Rabbonim have collectively given thousands of hours to formulate and develop to help with such a real and painful problem.

Pakistani soldiers fired at Indian posts along the highly militarized frontier in disputed Kashmir for a second consecutive night, the Indian military said Saturday, as tensions flared between the nuclear-armed rivals following a deadly attack on tourists last week. India described the massacre, in which gunmen killed 26 people, most of them Indian tourists, as a “terror attack” and accused Pakistan of backing it. Pakistan denies the charge. The assault, near the resort town of Pahalgam in India-controlled Kashmir, was claimed by a previously unknown militant group calling itself the Kashmir Resistance. It was the restive region’s worst assault targeting civilians in years.

The Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic Countries issued a statement saying: “We are shocked and saddened by the desecration of the tomb of Rabbi Chaim Vital, z”tl this Thursday in Damascus.” “Jews have lived in Syria for thousands of years and are an integral part of its history. We urgently call on the Syrian government to immediately secure Jewish holy sites, synagogues, and cemeteries and ensure their safety, security and well-being.”

President Trump sat down to meet privately with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Vatican City this morning.

In his first televised interview aired Friday, former hostage Ron Krivoi opened up about his time in Hamas captivity and shared chilling details about the abuse suffered by another hostage, Matan Angrest, who remains imprisoned in Gaza, Times of Israel reports.
Krivoi, who holds dual Israeli-Russian citizenship, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival and later freed during the November 2023 ceasefire, reportedly as a gesture by Hamas toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“As a person, I’m a quiet man, I live my life. That’s why I didn’t give interviews, I just continued my life as it was before – that’s what I asked for, to return to my life,” Krivoi told Channel 12 news during the interview.

Israel has employed artificial intelligence on a scale never seen before in its military campaign in Gaza, with many of the systems created through partnerships between active-duty intelligence soldiers and reservists employed at major tech companies, The New York Times reported Friday, citing sources from European, American, and Israeli defense circles.

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu condemned a protest in Tel Aviv where demonstrators displayed masks of his face surrounding a protester wrapped in faux-bloody bandages during an anti-government rally.
“This needs to be said in a clear voice. The severed heads, as well as the protests today, have nothing to do with the hostages. On the contrary, these are people who decided to sacrifice the hostages in an attempt to overthrow the government,” the conservative Tikva Forum wrote in a post that Netanyahu’s official Twitter account shared.