The Gulf state’s dual ability to influence Hamas and mediate with Western powers placed it in a unique position.

By Kenneth Moeng Mokgatlhe

Qatar’s withdrawal as a mediator in the Israel-Hamas conflict is a bittersweet moment, highlighting both its unique position and its controversial role in the region. As a small but influential Gulf state with around 300,000 citizens and over two million expatriates, Qatar has built a formidable reputation as a peace mediator in the Middle East and North Africa. From playing a key role in the US-Taliban peace negotiations during the Afghanistan conflict to facilitating ceasefires, Qatar has shown its ability to navigate the complexities of conflict resolution.

In the Israel-Hamas conflict, Qatar leveraged its proximity to Hamas to achieve a short-lived ceasefire and secure the release of 105 hostages in a prisoner exchange deal at the end of 2023. This followed the unprecedented attack on October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed over 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped more than 250 into Gaza’s tunnels. Despite these efforts, the conflict rages on, with Israel continuing its military pressure on Hamas, demanding the release of 101 remaining hostages still believed to be hidden in tunnels beneath Gaza.

While Qatar’s close ties with Hamas were instrumental in negotiating these deals, it also placed the Gulf state under scrutiny. Hosting Hamas since 2012 after its departure from Syria during the Arab Spring, Qatar has provided the group with security and financial backing. Over the years, Qatar has transferred an estimated $1.8 billion to Gaza, ostensibly for humanitarian aid, but much of it was allegedly diverted to enhance Hamas’ military capabilities. This financial assistance, which began in earnest in 2018, was initially intended to mitigate the Palestinian Authority’s decision to cut salaries of government employees in Gaza. However, critics argue that the funds emboldened Hamas rather than alleviating the suffering of ordinary Palestinians.

Qatar’s withdrawal as a mediator marks a critical juncture in this complex conflict. On one hand, its departure is a loss for ongoing negotiations, given its unique leverage over Hamas and strong diplomatic relations with the United States. Qatar’s dual ability to influence Hamas and mediate with Western powers placed it in a unique position to drive forward both the release of hostages and the pursuit of a ceasefire. On the other hand, Qatar’s perceived bias due to its close relationship with Hamas has raised questions about its impartiality. While it played a crucial role at the negotiating table, its direct support for a group classified by many countries as a terrorist organization undermined its credibility as a neutral party.

The Biden Administration’s decision to pressure Qatar to expel Hamas leaders reflects the growing frustration with the lack of progress toward peace. The ongoing war, which has persisted for over a year, highlights the disconnect between Hamas’ leadership in exile and the suffering of Gaza’s residents. While Hamas leaders enjoy comfortable lives in Qatar and other nations, such as Iran, ordinary Gazans bear the brunt of the conflict. The expulsion of Hamas leaders from Qatar could signal a shift toward holding them accountable for their actions, as their decisions have directly impacted the lives of millions.

Hamas’ leadership, shielded from the consequences of their actions, has displayed a glaring disconnect from the realities faced by the people they claim to represent. Their strategy of attacking Israel and then retreating to safe havens abroad leaves ordinary Palestinians to endure the inevitable military retaliation. This lack of foresight and accountability further exacerbates the hardships faced by Gaza’s residents, whose suffering is compounded by Hamas’ failure to prioritize peace and stability.

As the conflict continues, the question remains whether Qatar’s withdrawal will pave the way for a more balanced mediation process or create a vacuum that exacerbates tensions. The Gulf state’s ability to bridge the gap between opposing sides was unmatched, but its controversial support for Hamas has left an indelible mark on its legacy as a mediator.

The broader implications of Qatar’s decision also highlight the challenges of navigating international diplomacy in the Middle East. While some argue that Qatar’s departure may open the door for more impartial mediators, others fear it could embolden Hamas or complicate efforts to secure a ceasefire. Either way, the need for a concerted international effort to address the root causes of the conflict is more urgent than ever.

Qatar’s withdrawal serves as a reminder that peace in the Middle East requires not only skilled diplomacy but also genuine commitment to the principles of justice and accountability. The international community must now work to fill the gap left by Qatar, ensuring that future negotiations prioritize the well-being of all affected populations. Only by addressing the underlying issues that perpetuate this cycle of violence can a sustainable resolution be achieved.

About the writer:

Kenneth Moeng Mokgatlhe is a political writer and researcher based at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

In its zeal to condemn Israel in its war against Hamas, the International Criminal Court appears to have committed a number of errors.

By Prof. Raymond Wacks

On 25 August 2012 the tenacious and sagacious friend of Israel, Douglas Murray, published an article in The Spectator, questioning whether the International Criminal Court (ICC) served any useful purpose, and wondering whether the real issue was not ‘How can we bring these leaders to justice?’ but rather ‘How can we get these leaders off their people’s backs?’ He also doubted whether the conviction of malevolent dictators really acts as an effective deterrent to other evil leaders.

My response, published the following week, argued that deterrence was not the purpose of a judgment of the Court. Nothing, I suggested, would dissuade a monster from carrying out his iniquitous conduct. Instead, I wrote:

The principal objective of the ICC must therefore be simple retribution. Why create an offence if a transgression is met with impunity? Tyrants who commit crimes against humanity deserve punishment, not to deter others (even the gallows are unlikely to achieve that), but because they must suffer for their evil.

Murray contends that instead of prosecuting these ogres, innocent lives might be saved if, like Idi Amin, oppressors are given sanctuary by, say, Saudi Arabia. But this is cold comfort for their victims, or indeed anyone who yearns to see justice done. If the purpose is to eliminate a wicked leader, then his speedy dispatch – as with Caesar, Mussolini, and Gaddafi – would surely be a more efficient method. Even those domestic tribunals that ‘tried’ and executed Saddam Hussein and the Ceausescus, offer a more expeditious solution than a safe haven elsewhere.

I mention this exchange merely to demonstrate my support for the establishment of the ICC, and its role as a legitimate forum in which genocide and other heinous crimes may be judged and penalized.

THE ROME STATUTE

The ICC was established on 17 July 1998 under the Rome Statute, an international treaty, and came into force in July 2002. Some 120 States have signed up to the Court’s jurisdiction.

Its creation reflected the need for a permanent international tribunal to prosecute crimes allegedly committed in the pursuit of war. The Court of eighteen judges elected by member States claims that its main purpose is to help:

 ‘…end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community.’

In this endeavour it has so far notched up 32 cases, issued 59 arrest warrants – the latest being for Binyamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, and the presumed late, unlamented Hamas leader, Mohammed Deif, a major strategist of the 7 October atrocities who was accused of crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, sexual violence. and hostage-taking. (This is an unnoticed acknowledgement that the events of 7 October actually occurred, were committed by Hamas, and were not, as certain malevolent individuals and groups have maintained, concocted).

THE PROCESS

According to the ICC, the circumstances leading to its decision to issue the arrest warrants were as follows:

• On 1 January 2015, the State of Palestine lodged a declaration under Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute accepting jurisdiction of the Court since 13 June 2014.
• On 2 January 2015, the State of Palestine acceded to the Rome Statute by depositing its instrument of accession with the UN Secretary-General. The Rome Statute entered into force for the State of Palestine on 1 April 2015.
• On 22 May 2018, pursuant to Articles 13(a) and 14 of the Rome Statute, the State of Palestine referred to the Prosecutor the situation since 13 June 2014, with no end date. 
• On 3 March 2021, the Prosecutor announced the opening of the investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine. This followed the Pre-Trial Chamber’s decision of 5 February 2021 that the Court could exercise its criminal jurisdiction in the situation and, by majority, that the territorial scope of this jurisdiction extends to Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. 
• On 17 November 2023, the Office of the Prosecutor received a further referral of the situation in the State of Palestine, from South Africa, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Comoros, and Djibouti, and on 18 January 2024, the Republic of Chile and the United Mexican State additionally submitted a referral to the Prosecutor with respect to the situation in the State of Palestine.

The Court found reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution, and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a ‘widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza’.

On 26 September 2024, Israel challenged the Court’s jurisdiction over both the situation in Palestine and over Israeli nationals on the basis of Article 19(2) of the Statute. It also requested the Court to order the Prosecution to provide a new notification of the initiation of an investigation to its authorities under Article 18(1) of the Statute, and requested it to halt any proceedings before the Court, including the consideration of the applications for warrants of arrest for Netanyahu and Gallant, submitted by the Prosecution on 20 May 2024.

The ICC held, however, that the acceptance by Israel of the Court’s jurisdiction is not required, as the Court can exercise its jurisdiction on the basis of territorial jurisdiction of Palestine. In addition, pursuant to Article 19(1), States are not entitled to challenge the Court’s jurisdiction under Article 19(2) prior to the issuance of a warrant of arrest. It therefore decided that Israel’s challenge was premature.

FIVE FLAWS

There are, I believe, at least five important flaws in the Court’s decision to issue the arrest warrants.

First, the central question of the Court’s jurisdiction just mentioned, was challenged by Israel, but dismissed by the judges in a fairly cavalier fashion. Israel argued that Palestine lacked ‘the competences required under international law to be able to delegate territorial jurisdiction to the Court.’ It cited the Court’s decision in 2021 that issues of territorial jurisdiction may be raised by interested States based on Article 19 of the Statute. Israel claimed that it is a State from which acceptance of jurisdiction is required under Article 12 of the Statute – even if there is another State which has delegated jurisdiction to the Court for that same situation.

This, the judges held, was incorrect as a matter of law. ‘The acceptance by Israel of the Court’s jurisdiction is not required, as the Court can exercise its jurisdiction on the basis of the territorial jurisdiction of Palestine’. In other words, when there is one jurisdictional basis pursuant to Article 12(2)(a) or (b), there is no need for an additional one.

But this is not an uncontentious point, and it is at least arguable that the Court may lack the authority to issue the warrants against Israeli nationals. An essential principle of public international law is that it is only by virtue of a state’s consent that it is bound by the jurisdiction of an international court. (Israel along with the United States, Russia, and China, has not acceded to the Court’s authority).

It is true, on the other hand, that the Rome Statute empowers the Security Council to refer crimes of atrocity committed in any country to the Court for investigation. For example, it referred Sudan to the Court in 2005 in relation to the humanitarian calamity in Darfur, and Libya in 2011. Neither have accepted the Court’s jurisdiction. But these cases may be distinguished from the present situation which involves the prosecution of individual nationals of a State that is not signed up to the Court.

Secondly, it is questionable whether food insecurity in a warzone is ineluctable proof of the commission of a war crime. In fact, this would be the first time the Court has sought to prosecute such circumstances. Moreover, there is substantial evidence to indicate that the delivery of aid to Gaza has been hampered by the failures of aid agencies, and the looting by Gazans themselves, including, in all probability, armed members of Hamas.

Thirdly, the ICC’s jurisdiction is based on the concept of ‘complementarity’: the principle that its power kicks in only when domestic authorities lack the capacity or inclination to investigate and prosecute alleged offenders. This hardly describes the position in Israel where the independence of prosecutors and courts are not in doubt.

Fourthly, it is not unreasonable to express grave misgivings about the impartiality of the Court (let alone the UN in general). Before issuing the arrest warrants, the Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, sought the advice of an ‘expert panel’ the members of which he personally selected. It has been pointed out that at least two of those members had previously accused Israel of international crimes, and two others had personal links to Khan.

Fifthly, Israel contended that its claim that ‘Palestine is not a State on the territory of which the alleged conduct occurred is in itself sufficient to make Israel the sole State whose acceptance of jurisdiction is required.’ Israel submitted that all that is required for it to have standing under Article 19(2)(c) is that its claim is prima facie tenable, and that it had an ‘immediate right’ to challenge jurisdiction under Article 19 given the current stage of the proceedings.

The judges rejected the argument that merely because Israel claimed that Palestine could not have delegated jurisdiction to the Court, the judges would be required to disregard its previous binding decision. It took the view that there is a fundamental difference between granting a State standing on the presumptive validity of its claim to have jurisdiction, on the one hand, and one granting it standing on the basis of an argument, already ruled upon, that a particular State Party does not have jurisdiction, on the other.

In any event, Israel’s standing was not an issue; the real question, it held, was whether Israel was entitled, or indeed obliged, to challenge the Court’s jurisdiction before it has decided on the issuing of warrants of arrest. It held Israel was not entitled to challenge its jurisdiction prior to the issuance of a warrant of arrest or a summons.

It did, however, hold that Israel will have the opportunity to challenge the Court’s jurisdiction if and when the Court issues any arrest warrants or summonses against its nationals. If I understand this correctly, it suggests that it is open to Israel challenge the jurisdiction of the court and/or the admissibility of the case, on the grounds, for example, that it is already being investigated or prosecuted by the State with jurisdiction over the crimes alleged. The prospects of success may fairly be described as slender.

CONCLUSION

As a defender of the ICC, I consider it as lamentable that its credibility has – at a stroke – been grievously diminished by this exercise of bias (which the Israeli Prime Minister has castigated as antisemitic). In consequence of this travesty, the Trump administration might well impose sanctions against the Court thereby emasculating its essential powers.

The world’s dictators and terrorists will be jubilant.

About the writer:

Raymond Wacks, Emeritus Professor of Law and Legal Theory, is the author of 17 books and editor of ten.
The seventh edition of his Understanding Jurisprudence: An Introduction to Legal Theory will be published by Oxford University Press in 2025. 
The Rule of Law Under Fire? (Bloomsbury/ Hart Publishing) appeared in 2021.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

How football is becoming a zero-sum ‘game’?

By Kenneth Moeng Mokgatlhe

The tragic and horrifying scenes of violence in Amsterdam against fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv, who were there to support their team in a match against Ajax earlier this month, were a painful reminder of one of the darkest times in history – the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, millions of Jews across Europe were targeted, persecuted, and killed, with other marginalized groups like Black people, and the LGBTQ community also suffering under brutal oppression. Yet, Jews bore the brunt of that unimaginable horror.

Today, despite the world’s advancement in building institutions, systems, and policies to combat hatred and discrimination, polarizing actions targeting Israelis and Jews still occur. Attacks like the one in Amsterdam show how far we still need to go in promoting tolerance.

Democratic South Africa’s founding father, Nelson Mandela, once declared, “Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.” Mandela’s words were born from South Africa’s own painful legacy of colonialism and Apartheid, under which Black South Africans endured systemic violence and discrimination. Instead of pursuing retribution, Mandela and his contemporaries opted for a path of reconciliation and healing – a legacy of tolerance that should guide us today.

Seeing football fans attacked for being associated with Israel or for being Jewish is deeply disturbing. Such cowardly and barbaric acts demand the strongest condemnation from all progressive nations and communities. These attacks reveal an alarming rise in antisemitism and racism worldwide, as Jews continue to face threats and violence simply for their identity.

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights reports that Jews in Europe experience high levels of antisemitism both off and online. As a result, many Jews feel pressured to conceal their identity to ensure their safety, a distressing outcome fueled by ongoing conflicts in the Middle East that disproportionately impact Jewish communities in Europe, the United States, and beyond.

South Africa is not immune to this surge in intolerance. According to the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), there were 182 reported incidents of antisemitism in the first 11 months of 2023, including assaults outside a synagogue in Johannesburg, an attack on a Rabbi, and another incident where a Jewish individual was hit over the head at a pro-Palestine rally in Cape Town. This rising hostility undermines the country’s commitment to diversity and tolerance.

The recent case of Cricket South Africa stripping Jewish player David Teeger of his captaincy under questionable security concerns reflects a troubling trend of discrimination. Targeting individuals based on their Jewish heritage or association with Israel is an affront to sportsmanship and tolerance. Such actions are not motivated by solidarity with Palestinian struggles but by an underlying hatred that unfairly targets Jewish individuals wherever they are.

The violence in Amsterdam has less to do with Middle Eastern conflicts and more to do with hatred toward Jews. The fans attending this game were civilians who came to support their team – like anyone else in the world – only to be met with hostility. Their presence was about enjoying sports, not waging a war.

It is evident that the attacks were premeditated, likely orchestrated by those who sympathize with Hamas, which launched an assault against Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 Israelis, abducting over 250 people, and destroying property in an attempt to eliminate the State of Israel. Rather than using peaceful means to express their views, these attackers sent a hostile message that further escalates tensions rather than working toward resolution.

Sports have the power to unite people across backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs. When politics enters this space, it risks creating a toxic divide that shatters unity. We must resist anyone’s attempt to exploit sports for narrow political agendas. Let us champion the beautiful game and the unity it fosters, standing together against the forces that would use it to sow division and hate.

About the writer:

Kenneth Moeng Mokgatlhe is a political writer and researcher based at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

Is this the future and fate of the Jews of Europe?

By David E. Kaplan

“What remains of Jewish life in Europe today works like this,” writes Giulio Meotti in Il Foglio, an Italian daily with nationwide circulation:

“…synagogues are protected fortresses; schools have no signs but they do have many private police and security guards; houses have removed the outside mezuzah; Jews do not wear a kippah in the street or a necklace with the Star of David; they do not give their Hebrew surname to taxis; they tell their children not to speak Hebrew in public, there are no Israeli flags in their windows.”

In less than a century after the Holocaust, signs of the worst in European history are barbarically repeating itself and that universal pledge of “Never Again” has been exposed as a façade for “Once Again”.

Were Jews delusional or naïve in thinking post-Holocaust that antisemitic attitudes had changed? I recall when attending in 1997, the 33^rd conference of the World Zionist Organization in Jerusalem and one of the leaders of the French Jewish community taking to the podium and in a booming voice, boasted that “France today is the finest and safest country in the world for Jews,” and to emphasize his point, added with a raised finger, “even more so that the US.” Rattling off the names of kosher restaurants in Paris “that would rival New York,” he painted a picture of a new “Golden Age” for French Jews, a far cry from his county’s painful past of Dreyfus and the Shoah. Even if it was an astonishing statement then, far more so today as countries in present day Europe seem to be competing in how far they express their antipathy towards Jews.  

Not only do they want their Jews to disappear from Europe but they also want the Jewish state to disappear from the face of the earth.

Following the Amsterdam pogrom with its roaming gangs violently accosting people in the street and demanding to see their passports to see if they were Jewish and thus eligible for a public beating, Europe is looking increasingly 1930s Hitlerian!

This horrific well-orchestrated mass attack in a European city center by pro-Palestinian hordes on the eve of the anniversary of Kristallnacht, was a chilling reminder of the dangers of resurfaced antisemitism on European soil.

Writes Meotti:

 “Last week’s pogrom in Amsterdam should  be the final wake-up call for Dutch Jews, but I doubt it will be.”

He strongly advocates that “Europe’s Jews should leave now before it’s too late.”

Agreeing with him is the Chief Rabbi of the Great Synagogue of Paris, Moshe Sebbag, who recently advocated departure for his community:

“There is no future for Jews in France. I tell all young people to go to Israel or to a safer country.”

While mostly rare for practicing community rabbis to encourage their congregants “to pack their bags,” it would appear this is precisely what is happening today in Europe. Another significant chief rabbi joining this trembling trend is the Chief Rabbi of Barcelona, ​​Meir Bar Hen, who expressed:

 “This place is lost. Better to leave sooner rather than later to Israel. Our community is condemned both because of radical Islam and the reluctance of the authorities to confront it. I encouraged them to buy a house in Israel.”

Echoing this petrifying perception is the chief rabbi of Brussels, Avraham Gigi, who asserts:

“The Jews have no future in Europe.”

Far less surprising is to hear Frederik Sieradzki, the spokesman for the Jewish community of Malmö, saying that Sweden’s third largest city “could lose all its Jews by 2029.” Following the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre, Swedish cities, especially Malmö, have experienced an avalanche of Jew-hatred at the hands of Islamist mobs and their far-left comrades-in-arms. Sweden, like countries elsewhere, has imported the contemporary global antisemitism where the word “Jew” has been replaced with the word “Zionist” and/or “Israel.” It is the traditional “same old, same old” antisemitism in transparent disguise.

There is “no solution” for Malmö’s Jews and is “beyond repair” is the view of the country’s Jewish leadership and affirms Sieradzki’s, assessment that by 2029, the “Jewish community could disappear entirely.”

Not by 2029, but no less pessimistic is the prediction for the UK.

British-Israeli businessman and philanthropist who has been chairman of JNF (Jewish National Fund)-UK since 2008,Samuel Hayek predicts:

“Jews have no future in the United Kingdom.”

How the unthinkable of yesterday has sadly shifted to the plausible of today.

In Germany, the European country thought the most favorably disposed to Jews and Israel since the Holocaust, there are tangible shifts. Editor-in-chief Philipp Peyman Engel of the Jüdische Allgemeine, said in an interview with Die Welt that “Jewish in Germany is becoming invisible.”

I understood his point. A year ago, I met with a young adult delegation from Germany where one of the participants from Berlin said he has had to change his route when driving to the center of the city. “It’s added over 30 minutes to my drive. What used to be perfectly safe, now as a Jew, I cannot anymore drive through my old route which is predominantly Muslim. It’s now unsafe for Jews!”

Last year, 1,100 Jews immigrated to Israel from France. This year, it is predicted there will be over 4,500. This is an impressive hike in only one year. Then if we compare that before 2012 only 500 Jews left France every year, these statistics are spine-chillingly revealing. Jews are clearly leaving France in ever-increasing numbers and they are doing so because they see themselves no longer living through a “Golden Age” but rather another “Dark Age”. 

A blueprint to this “Dark Age” is to be found in the pages of Mein Kampf espousing the vision of a “judenrein” Europe – a continent cleansed of its Jews.

Is this acceptable to today and tomorrow’s Europeans?

For many who have read the signs, they will follow these developments from Israel.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

Israelis can’t live with monsters on its borders anymore – a perspective from Kibbutz Kfar Aza revisited.

By Forest Rain Marcia

There is something very private about death – or at least there should be. Perhaps that is why murder is so horrifying. Life is the one thing that belongs only to the individual and the creator.

Invading your body to steal that spark of holiness is a defilement beyond words.

The Gazan invaders went a step beyond murder. They murdered with glee. Laughing with joy.

Signs of their enthusiasm remain, one year later.

How are you supposed to deal with places where this frenzy took place? Places where people you knew and loved had this done to them?

In Kfar Aza, the “young people’s neighborhood” remains untouched. While other areas of the kibbutz are being renovated and refreshed so that life can return to them, this neighborhood is frozen in time – from the bullet holes in the walls and the signs left behind by the rescue workers to the dishes left in the sink by people who will never have another morning. From here, hostages were taken and others were murdered. Here, the kibbutz decided that visitors could bear witness to the remains of the horror that occurred throughout their community.

Most of the homes are blocked off with red tape. These are families who wanted to keep those last moments between their loved ones and their murderers and the people who found them to themselves. Not private but also not open for all.

One family decided they want visitors to see. They want everyone to know.

A sign above the door calls upon visitors to enter. Here Sivan Elkabets and Naor Hasidim lived and died together. Their families added enlarged photos to the interior of the house so visitors could see the before, not just the after – an image of their bedroom, clean and neat in contrast to the mattress flipped upside down and the mess on the floor. Images in the living room of the happy couple. The last WhatsApp conversation Sivan’s dad had with his daughter and her boyfriend, Naor.

I couldn’t take in everything I was seeing. All I could see were holes everywhere… bullet holes… holes also from a grenade? The walls, the refrigerator, even the ceiling, riddled with holes.

The murderers were ecstatic.

This (below) is the entrance to their home. Just this is enough to convey the horror.

The holes in the washing machine. The door. The walls. On the wall under the window, in small letters instructions for the Zaka crew: “Human remains on the couch.”

The bigger writing on the other wall, a mixture of different crews who checked the house for safety and what other tasks needed to be done there. The writing in yellow indicates that on October 11th, 3 days after the invasion, there was a dead terrorist that still needed to be removed. On the door, the Zaka sticker from when the house was finally cleared.

Around the world many seem to have forgotten (or pretend not to know) what happened that day. We cannot. We will not.

We meant it when we said NEVER AGAIN.

About the writer:

Forest Rain Marcia is an American-born Israeli who lives in northern Israel. She’s a branding expert and storyteller. Her passion is giving voice to the stories of Israel illuminating its profound events, cherished values, and exemplary role models that transcend borders, casting Israel as an eternal wellspring of inspiration and strength for a global audience.

Forest Rain made Aliyah at the age of thirteen. After her IDF service, she co-developed and co-directed a project to aid victims of terrorism and war. These activities gave her extensive first-hand experience with the emotional and psychological processes of civilians, soldiers, and their families, wounded and/or bereaved and traumatized by terrorism and war (grief, guilt, PTSD, etc). Throughout the years, she has continued to voice the stories, pain, and strength of traumatized Israelis to motivate others to provide support and counter the hate that threatens Jews in Israel, around the world, and Western civilization itself through the understanding that what begins with the Jews never ends with Jews.

Inspiration from Zion: https://inspirationfromzion.com/

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).