Welcome to +972’s Sunday Recap! 

In the mixed Palestinian-Jewish city of Lod, real estate developers have pounced on plots of land in Ramat Eshkol, a low-income, predominantly Arab neighborhood. But as archaeologist and art historian Tawfiq Da’adli explained in an article originally published in Local Call, the planned demolition of 1970s-era housing and construction of two high rise towers threatens more than displacement and further Judaization of the city. The project also threatens to trample Lod’s 2,000 year-old heritage.

This December marked one year since the fall of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime, a system of repression that shaped Syrian life for decades. As Santiago Montag reported, thousands filled the streets to celebrate, but others were reeling from Israel’s latest raid fearing for their safety amid sectarian tensions.

October 7 shattered the illusion that the so-called “peace process” offered a path to resolution. Decades of occupation management only incubated resistance. While every effort is being expended today to re-legitimize the Israeli state following its assault on Gaza, Tareq Baconi argued that a live-streamed annihilation cannot be unseen — and that the world now knows that the Israeli apartheid regime can no longer exist.

Since leaving Gaza in August, Abdallah Al-Jazzar has found physical safety at Maynooth University in Ireland. In a diary-style reflection, he writes that survival feels hollow without the people, places and routines that once sustained him.

Samah Watad visited a Christmas market in Bir’im, a depopulated Palestinian village in the Galilee. After a two-year absence, displaced residents and their descendants returned to the village — part of efforts since 1948 to keep the community alive. 

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