Day: January 10, 2025

Lay of the Land Weekly Newsletter- 10 January 2025

Unveiling the contours and contrasts of an ever-changing Middle East landscape Reliable reportage and insightful commentary on the Middle East by seasoned journalists from the region and beyond.

Home

Like this content? Please share and tweet it to your friends and followers.

To subscribe via email please send a mail noting your request to: layotland@gmail.com 
Please visit/ join/follow our social media platforms:

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/LotLSite/

X (Twitter): Lay Of The Land – @layoftheland5

Also available on YouTube @The Israel Brief  – Simply click on the red subscribe button to receive alerts when a new report is posted.



What’s happening in Israel today? See from every Monday – Thursday LOTL’s The Israel Brief broadcasts and on our Facebook page and YouTube by seasoned TV & radio broadcaster, Rolene Marks familiar to Chai FM listeners in South Africa and millions of American listeners to the News/Talk/Sports radio station WINA, broadcasting out of Virginia, USA.

THE ISRAEL BRIEF- 30 December 2024 – 02 January 2025
(Click on the blue title)

THE ISRAEL BRIEF- 06-09 January 2024
(Click on the blue title)



Lay of the Land’s  ‘Pick of the Week’ photo

“STOP THIS HELL”

Haunting image from Hamas video footage of hostage Liri Albag

Like one big family, the people of Israel shudder with the Albag family in response to the media release on January 4, 2025 of the video clip of their 19-year-old hostage daughter, Liri Albag. “She is several dozen kilometers from us, and for 456 days we have been unable to bring her home,” the family said.



Articles

Please note there is a facility to comment beneath each article should you wish to express an opinion on the subject addressed.

(1)

ISRAEL’S FIELD DAY IN DUBAI

A Middle East round of ‘carnage’ was happening not on a battlefield but a rugby field.
By David E. Kaplan

Hot News! It escaped major media attention but it did not escape rugby fans or those reading between the lines. While Israel may hardly be popular in the region, the country’s first and only professional rugby team, the TEL AVIV HEAT, competed over November-December in the Dubai rugby 7s. The impact off the field matched its impact on!

ISRAEL’S FIELD DAY IN DUBAI
(Click on the blue title)



(2)

‘KINOCIDE’ REPORT: HAMAS SYSTEMATICALLY TARGETTED FAMILIES ON OCT. 7

The document coins a harrowing new term and describes how “Hamas struck at the heart of the Jewish community: the family unit.”
By Rolene Marks

Targeting Families. The quite visually ‘burning’ question following the brutal abuse of families during the October 7 massacre is whether “….the weaponization of the family unit constitute a new crime against humanity?” The writer looks at new report that argues that the scope of the cruelty “unequivocally warrants this recognition.”

‘KINOCIDE’ REPORT: HAMAS SYSTEMATICALLY TARGETTED FAMILIES ON OCT. 7
(Click on the blue title)



(3)

REVELATIONS OF RESILIENCE IN ISRAEL’S BATTERED NORTH

Despite devastation, hotels, restaurants and popular tourist spots are rebounding.
By Motti Verses

Return Flight. With the soundtrack of war in the north subsided, the birds return and so do patrons to hotels, restaurants and tourist sights. The writer interviews northerners in a return-and-restore mode in their fightback to normality.

REVELATIONS OF RESILIENCE IN ISRAEL’S BATTERED NORTH
(Click on the blue title)



(4)

AN ISLAND OF SANITY IN A SOMETIMES MURKY AND TREACHEOUS OCEAN

A family experience in Jerusalem hospital  reveals how “We, the people,” rather than “Them, the politicians,” could show a collective way forward.
By Solly Kaplinski

Unity in Diversity. Hadassah Medical Center workers hold signs in Hebrew and Arabic emphasizing cooperation as a model for success. “Can this be replicated in society? asks the writer.

AN ISLAND OF SANITY IN A SOMETIMES MURKY AND TREACHEOUS OCEAN
(Click on the blue title)



(5)

INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE IS MISGUIDED AND MISPLACED

Time to redirect pressure on Hamas instead of Israel to save remaining hostages
By Jonathan Feldstein


“Save Us”. Across the land, anxious Israelis stare daily at the faces of the remaining hostages in Gaza, and are at war to ‘Bring them Home’. Maybe it could happen sooner with less war, if a responsible international community would redirect its pressure on Hamas instead of Israel!

INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE IS MISGUIDED AND MISPLACED
(Click on the blue title)



LOTL Cofounders David E. Kaplan (Editor), Rolene Marks and Yair Chelouche

To unsubscribe, please reply to layotland@gmail.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).