This week’s news reads like a tug-of-war over the future of the Holy Land. In Washington, President Trump rolled out big plans for Gaza and for Saudi Arabia. In Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, Israelis are burying their dead after another terror attack. On the northern border, the IDF is striking Hamas infrastructure in Lebanon as winter rains soak tent camps in Gaza. All of it touches the people and the Land many of us in America call our spiritual home.
At the United Nations in New York, the Security Council endorsed Trump’s broad Gaza peace plan. The resolution backs an international “stabilization force” on the ground in Gaza and wraps it inside a larger US-led vision for the Strip’s future. From the White House, Trump said he is forming a “Board of Peace” for Gaza and promised that most major world leaders will sit around that table.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking in English to reach the international audience, welcomed the UN vote and framed it as backing “Trump’s vision” for Gaza. But Hamas is not on board. The terror group still refuses to disarm, even as US envoy Steve Witkoff prepares for another meeting with senior Hamas figure Khalil al-Hayya in ceasefire talks. So the headlines say “peace plan,” but the reality on the ground still includes a heavily armed Hamas and many unanswered questions.
Another major story centers on Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) visited the White House, where Trump formally designated the kingdom a “major non-NATO ally.” The two leaders signed deals on civil nuclear cooperation and a future sale of F-35 fighter jets. MBS told Trump he wants Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords and hinted that he’d like that to happen “as soon as possible.” But he also repeated that a path to a Palestinian state is crucial from his point of view. Trump later admitted there was no firm commitment, only “a good talk.”
In Jerusalem and inside Israel’s security establishment, the Saudi story looks different. The IDF is openly warning that selling F-35s to Riyadh could erode Israel’s long-standing qualitative edge in the air. For decades, US policy has promised to preserve Israel’s military advantage in a very tough neighborhood. Now, with advanced jets and nuclear cooperation on the table, Israelis are weighing the promise of broader normalization against the risks of sharing cutting-edge technology with a powerful neighbor whose future direction is still uncertain.
While world leaders talk in Washington and New York, the Holy Land itself is weeping. At the Gush Etzion Junction in Judea and Samaria, 71-year-old Aharon Cohen was murdered in a combined car-ramming and stabbing attack. Three others were wounded, including a woman seriously hurt by IDF fire as soldiers responded and killed the terrorists. For Israelis, this isn’t an abstract “security incident”—it’s a familiar junction on the way to school, work, or the grocery store.
To the north, the IDF struck what it described as a Hamas “military compound” near Sidon in Lebanon, used to train for attacks on Israel. Local officials report at least 13 killed in the strike. In a separate incident, UN peacekeepers with UNIFIL in southern Lebanon came under IDF fire in what Israel says was a tragic misidentification. At the same time, the US canceled meetings with Lebanon’s army chief after his public remarks criticizing Israel, signaling growing American frustration with Lebanese leadership.
The story of the hostages and the aftermath of October 7 still runs like a thread through the week’s coverage. Hamas handed the Red Cross “findings” instead of the body of a slain Israeli hostage, deepening families’ anguish and keeping their grief suspended in uncertainty. Hundreds gathered for the funeral of hostage Meny Godard, with President Isaac Herzog calling him “the best of humanity” and apologizing on behalf of the state for how long it took to bring him home. New memorials continue to rise for victims like Shiri Bibas and her young sons, murdered in captivity.
Just across the border, winter has arrived in Gaza. Reports from the Strip describe rain-soaked tent camps, families pushing water out of flimsy shelters, and children studying in makeshift schools on the beach. Aid groups say more assistance is entering, yet basic reconstruction is nowhere in sight. The same headlines that show new diplomacy at the UN also show tents collapsing in the mud.
Antisemitism outside the Land is never far from the news, either. In New York, an imam at a college “interfaith” event blamed a Jewish speaker for Gaza and led students in a walkout. Elsewhere in the US, a school that had expelled Jewish students after antisemitic bullying agreed to a legal settlement, including Holocaust and antisemitism education. A neo-Nazi in New York pled guilty to “monstrous plots” to poison Jewish children. Meanwhile, pro-Israel groups in Los Angeles hosted a Pride conference to counter “Queers for Palestine,” where a former hostage reminded attendees that whatever Western activists may chant, life under Hamas is no safe haven.
Taken together, this week’s headlines from the Holy Land and beyond tell a familiar story in a new way: powerful men in suits drawing lines on maps, terror attacks at busy junctions, jets roaring toward Lebanon, tents sagging under winter rain, and Jewish communities abroad navigating rising hostility. For those of us watching from America, Israel may be an ocean away, but spiritually it is still “home base.” The news simply invites us to keep our eyes on the Land, on the people, and on the God who has not forgotten His promises to Israel.
