{"id":598349,"date":"2026-08-28T06:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T06:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/598349\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T06:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T06:22:11","slug":"hanochi-brings-power-and-purpose-as-israel-fights-to-stay-in-running","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/598349\/","title":{"rendered":"Hanochi brings power and purpose as Israel fights to stay in running"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Israel National Basketball Team<\/a> will begin the first and crucial window of the second stage of the World Cup Qualifiers when it plays a home-away-from-home game against Poland in Riga before facing host nation Latvia on the road on Sunday (7 p.m. Israel time).<\/p>\n

Israel comes into this stage with a 2-4 record carried over from the first group stage, leaving it in sixth and last place in Group K.<\/p>\n

Just before the team attempts to keep its World Cup hopes alive, national team and Hapoel Jerusalem power forward Yotam Hanochi (25, 2.04 meters) spoke with The Jerusalem Post about the upcoming challenge, along with his club team and, of course, his dear friend Raz Adam OBM, who passed away in a car accident this past year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very exciting,\u201d Hanochi began. \u201cWe\u2019ve been really looking forward to these games and to make up for what happened in the previous window. It\u2019s always fun and exciting to be with the Israel national team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanochi has become a regular presence during the recent national team windows under head coach Ariel Beit Halachmi, who has worked with him since their days together at Hapoel Gilboa\/Galil and with the Israel U20 National Team.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Israel national team celebrates its 83-54 victory over Cyprus with visiting Israeli fans in Limassol on Sunday night. (credit: IBBA\/Courtesy)’I believe it will also show results,’ Hanochi says on two point guards<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very gratifying. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve wanted for a long time and worked very hard for. It\u2019s something that is a very, very central goal of my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first time in years, the national team will have its two top point guards, Yam Madar and Tamir Blatt, playing together on the court, something that excites Hanochi.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that it gives us a lot of options. They are the two best point guards in our basketball and I\u2019m very, very happy and enjoy playing alongside them. I believe it will also show results.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the final window of the first stage of the World Cup Qualifiers, Israel arrived with a depleted roster and suffered difficult losses to Germany and Croatia. Hanochi, who was one of the players who did report for national team duty, reflected on that tough stretch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that the atmosphere around that window was very rough. As players, we did our best and focused on what we could control, trying every day to keep ourselves focused, but there\u2019s no doubt that there was a very negative feeling surrounding that window. It\u2019s our responsibility to now correct that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Late last season, Hanochi moved from Maccabi Raanana to Hapoel Jerusalem, signing a 2.5-year contract with the capital city Reds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very happy. It\u2019s a very, very good and very professional organization, a place at the level I\u2019ve wanted to be at for a long time. The people are very, very good and very serious, and it\u2019s a club with ambitions to win titles and move forward.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what I want from myself as a player, so the adjustment has been good and I\u2019m really looking forward to and excited about the start of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

High-level moves were made by Jerusalem over the summer<\/p>\n

This summer, Jerusalem signed one of Europe\u2019s top coaches, Serbian Sasa Obradovic, who previously led Monaco to the EuroLeague Final Four. Hanochi is excited about the opportunity to play under the club\u2019s new tactician.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to working with him. I\u2019m really waiting for that. I\u2019ll give everything I have during this window with the national team. I really hope we win and get the job done, and afterward I\u2019ll be fully focused on Hapoel Jerusalem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jerusalem also brought in several high-level foreign players this summer, and Hanochi is looking forward to competing with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think at this level there are a lot of good players on the team and that\u2019s how it should be. That\u2019s part of the competition I\u2019m looking forward to. At the end of the day, we\u2019re a team, and we\u2019ll need to win together and be together. That\u2019s what will matter to me throughout the entire season, and I\u2019m looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last season, basketball itself was put into perspective for Israeli fans when Raz Adam, one of the country\u2019s prominent Israeli players, passed away following a tragic car accident. Hanochi, who played alongside the late Adam on Israel\u2019s national teams, most notably the U20 team that won the European Championship held in Israel in 2019, shared his memories.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was with Raz in the youth teams and with the U20 team. It was very difficult and it still hurts to this day. It\u2019s a tremendous sadness. He was truly an amazing person, funny, sharp and witty. I always had great conversations with him and really enjoyed his company, meeting him during the summers, at games and with the national teams. There are truly no words that can describe or contain the pain. I love him very much and I miss him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Israel National Basketball Team will begin the first and crucial window of the second stage of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4290,100467,34258,58759,85,46,106,107,43],"class_list":["post-598349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-basketball","tag-hapoel-haifa","tag-hapoel-jerusalem","tag-hapoel-tel-aviv","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-sports","tag-israeli-sports","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}