Finally, some good news on my end.
I upgraded Java from: java.vm.vendor: Eclipse Adoptium java.vm.version: 17.0.8.1+1 to the following: java.vm.vendor: Eclipse Adoptium java.vm.version: 21.0.9+10-LTS
and the http:send-request() calls started to work like before.
Regards, Yitzhak Khabinsky