Day: October 4, 2026

Lay of the Land Weekly Newsletter – 04 October 2026

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 – 28 September – 01 October 2026
(Click on the blue title)



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

ISRAELIS – ‘BLOODY’ INCREDIBLE

Israelis come off a flight covered in blood and smiling

The story of heroic survival that quickly unfolds, reveals this country’s unique national character of how ordinary citizens can suddenly behave quite extraordinary.

Plumber on Plummeting Plane. One of the heroes on Flydubai 1073 , Yaniv Hayoun, was wearing a blood-stained shirt when he disembarked at Ben Gurion Airport having stormed into the cockpit, subdued the Jihadi terrorist co-pilot and pinned him to the ground while other passengers used headphone cords to tie him up!




ARTICLES

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

(1)

A FAILURE OF A FILM

The truth is collateral damage in NAZA
By Rolene Marks

Rebutting NAZA. Freed hostage Omer Shem Tov (right) pushed back against the directors (left) of the controversial documentary “NAZA” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed explaining that Hamas – not the Israeli military – used captives as “collateral damage.” 

A FAILURE OF A FILM a
(Click on the blue title)



(2)

THESSALONIKI: WALKING THROUGH THE LOST ‘JERUSALEM OF THE BALKANS’

Once an epicenter of Jewish culture and one of the only cities in Europe where Jews were the majority, reveals illuminating fragments of that tragically lost world.
By Motti Verses

Tragic Thessaloniki. To understand the tragedy that befell this city’s Jewish community in the Holocaust, you first have to understand what existed before it. Jewish life in Thessaloniki stretches back more than two millennia. Follow the writer as he takes us on a tour.

THESSALONIKI: WALKING THROUGH THE LOST ‘JERUSALEM OF THE BALKANS’
(Click on the blue title)



(3)

PRETORIA’S HOUSE OF CARDS AT THE HAGUE

While creating a fine photo-op, 21 national  flags do not a verdict make.
By Shaun Schutte

Off the Record. South Africa’s ANC government has blurred the impression that every country joining in the proceedings it initiated, supports its accusation that Israel committed genocide. That is not what the court record shows.

PRETORIA’S HOUSE OF CARDS AT THE HAGUE
(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).