A petition condemning the continued captivity of Gilad Shalit and calling for government action to secure his return has attracted nearly 6000 signatures.

Conservative MP Lee Scott will take the petition, organised by youth movement FZY, to the House of Commons on Thursday.

The Federation of Zionist Youth celebrated its centenary with a reunion for over 350 alumni at the JFS premises in north London on Sunday.

A programme of reminiscence included archive photos, memory boards and quizzes and there were speeches looking back and forward.

Among the guests were Whetstone couple Betty and Bunny Marks, who met through the movement in 1951. "I have great memories of FZY," Mrs Marks said. "The thing about FZY is it embraces all aspects of Judaism and is a lovely way of mixing with people from all over the country. It influenced my life."

The number of youngsters taking gap years in Israel fell dramatically this year because of the financial climate.

Only around 60 went to Israel this year, compared to more than 100 a year over the past three, according to FZY, the UK's largest Zionist youth movement.

And Bnei Akiva, the religious Zionist movement, experienced a slide from about 40 to the lower 20s.

But leaders hope that numbers will begin to climb again this autumn with BA anticipating as many as 55 recruits to its yeshivah and year schemes which can cost as much as £16,000.

Two Birmingham University graduates have devised an electronic mobile pre-payment system allowing students to buy tickets for gigs and events by text message.

Txt2buy.com was set up by Simon Rabin and Daniel Rosenberg late last year and is currently being used in Manchester and Leeds.

The 23-year-olds became friends through FZY and spent a year researching the feasibility of their plans.

Simon said: “We originally approached the networks with the intention of billing purchases to students’ phone bills and were more or less ignored by them all.