Egypt

Giving Jews plenty of time to prepare for the Sukkot holiday, three months away, Egypt has announced that it will not export lulavs this year.

Israeli soldiers killed one of three terrorists who were crossing from Egypt early Wednesday morning. The other two fled ito Egyptian territory.

With all the ballyhoo about the alleged "existential" conflict between Israel and Iran, you might think that the news that Iran is trying to send an aid boat to Gaza, in the wake of the Israeli military attack on the Turkish aid boat that killed eight Turks and an American, would occasion a great wailing and gnashing of teeth in the American media.

Egypt closes its crossing with Gaza to Algerian activists despite last week's announcement that it would remain open.

First came the clash at Davos in January 2009, when Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked off the stage after an angry exchange with the Israeli president, Shimon Peres during a panel discussion on Gaza at the World Economic Forum. Then came the surprise uranium deal with Tehran, undermining Western pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear program, followed by the Israeli assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which sailed under Turkish flags, sending shockwaves throughout the world.

Egypt's decision to open the Rafiah crossing deals a heavy blow to one of Gaza's few industries – the tunnel trade.

As Israel continues to grapple with the international uproar over its flotilla raid, NBC decided to cover a different side of the story by taking a rare insider's look into daily life in the Gaza Strip.

Shots of secret tunnels used to smuggle animals and other items across the border from Egypt, and street children scrambling for pebbles with the intention of grinding them into cement (which remains banned by Israeli forces), are among some of the more disturbing images seen in the broadcast.

Watch the report below:

The Obama Administration's continued refusal to criticize Israel for its ruthless killing of aid workers off the coast of Gaza highlights a fundamental problem with the way in which the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in America is portrayed.