France is preparing to distribute a “survival manual” to every household to help citizens prepare for “imminent threats” – including armed conflict on French soil.

“This includes natural disasters, technological and cyber incidents, health crises like Covid-19, and security crises like terrorist attacks and armed conflict,” she said.

If approved by Bayrou, the 20-page booklet will be delivered to households before the summer.

The French plan follows updates to similar booklets issued to millions of households in Sweden and Finland, which include instructions on how to prepare for the effects of military conflicts, communications outages and power cuts, as well as extreme weather events.

The new booklet will be similar in content to a French government website, launched in 2022, that provides advice on how to prepare for an emergency.

The manual will be divided into three sections, offering practical advice on how to protect yourself and loved ones in the face of immediate danger.

Among the recommendations will be having a list of emergency contacts (fire service, police and ambulance); knowing which radio channels to tune into; and ensuring that all doors are shut in the event of a nuclear accident.

The manual will also outline ways to contribute to the defense of the community, such as volunteering for reserve units or local fire-fighting groups.

The booklet will recommend all households have a “survival kit” including six liters (1.6 gallons) of bottled water, a dozen tins of food, batteries and a flashlight in case of power outages.

It will also advise citizens to buy medical supplies, such as paracetamol, compresses, and saline solution.

“I’m not worried about a war on French soil, but people need to know what to do, just in case,” he said.

“Basic things like medicine and food should be given to every household,” he added.

Carine Langlois, 56, remains sceptical about the likelihood of armed conflict in France.

“I don’t think there will be a war. It’s not President Emmanuel Macron’s role to intervene between Trump and Putin. There are other other matters that require urgent attention here in France,” Langlois said.

“We survived Covid, and we will manage if something else happens,” she added.

Laure Mourgue d’Algue, a 25-year-old primary school teacher, describes herself as “anti-war” but thinks the manual “makes sense from a standpoint of prevention.”

“Having a basic knowledge of what you need to survive – like knowing how to handle electricity – is important in terms of risk management,” she said.

However, she noted that a manual alone may not be enough.

“Psychological safety matters, and a piece of paper won’t provide that. We need training,” she said.

“Engagement can also mean joining associations, such as the reserve forces,” she said.

“We are doing everything we can to ensure citizens are ready to respond in the event of a crisis,” she added.

Earlier this month, Macron announced “a major overhaul” of France’s security forces, including plans to increase the number of operational reservists from 40,000 to 100,000 by 2035.

During a visit to a military base in eastern France on Tuesday, he said additional measures on military capabilities, investments, and equipment would be announced in the coming weeks.

“Our country and our continent must continue to defend themselves, equip themselves, and prepare if we want to avoid war,” Macron said.

“This is the choice we have made, and will continue to make. No one can say what will happen in the months and years to come.”

The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen early Thursday morning, the second to target Israel since the Gaza ceasefire ended on Tuesday.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for what the Iran-backed group said was a ballistic missile fired in support of Palestinians and in response to Israel’s renewed bombardment of Gaza.

The missile was intercepted before it entered Israeli territory, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.

No injuries were immediately reported, according to Israel’s emergency service Magen David Adom (MDA).

Sirens sounded in several areas across the country, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, authorities said.

The Houthis said the missile targeted Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

The group also claimed it targeted the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and a number of United States warships in the Red Sea with an unspecified number of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones, in response to the recent wave of US airstrikes across Yemen.

The launch came after US strikes targeted Yemen on Wednesday and early into Thursday, including in the capital Sanaa, as President Donald Trump threatened the Houthis in a post on his Truth Social platform, saying the rebel group “will be completely annihilated.”

The Houthis earlier said they will continue their assaults on American and Israeli interests until the hostilities in Gaza cease.

Dozens of people have been reported killed after Trump ordered “decisive” military action against the Houthis in Yemen late last week, opening a new salvo against the group that has targeted vital Red Sea shipping routes.

US strikes over the weekend killed at least 53 people and wounded almost 100 others in Yemen, including women and children, the Houthi-run health ministry said according to the Associated Press.

On Wednesday, US strikes on Sanaa also injured seven women and two children in a residential neighborhood, the Houthi-run health ministry said.

US strikes also targeted the western province of Al-Jawf on Wednesday and Hodeidah and Saada early Thursday, the Houthis said.

Video from Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV shows Yemeni civil defense teams extinguishing blazing fires in the aftermath of the strikes, damaged buildings and vehicles, and two children with blood on their bodies and clothes.

The US Central Command did not clarify specific locations it targeted in Yemen but confirmed Wednesday that its forces “continue 24/7 operations against the Iran-backed Houthis.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa wants foreign armies to help crack down on gang violence in the country.

In an interview with the BBC published Tuesday night, Noboa said he wants US, European and Brazilian armies to join his “war” on gangs, telling the broadcaster that his country needs more armed forces to fight against criminal groups.

The Ecuadorean leader previously called for international forces to support the country’s effort to combat gangs. In a local radio interview earlier this month, Noboa said his government was “already in talks” to receive foreign military support for provinces like Guayas known for high crime, but did not specify which countries were involved in the talks.

“We have a plan in place with our law enforcement agencies, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces, the Strategic Intelligence Center, and international assistance and support from special forces. That’s essential,” he told Guayaquil’s Radio City.

Ecuador has been hit by waves of gang violence – often linked to the drug trade – prompting the government to take a series of extraordinary measures, including a nationwide crackdown last year, preemptive pardons for law enforcement officers battling the gangs, and states of emergency.

According to figures from the government, the start to the year has seen an unprecedent level of violence with more than 1,000 homicides. Data from organized crime research center InSight Crime suggests Ecuador has the highest homicide rate in Latin America.

Earlier this month, Noboa took his controversial military operation a step further earlier by announcing a “strategic alliance” with Erik Prince, founder of the notorious private military contractor formerly known as Blackwater.

The move was met with skepticism within Ecuador, with former army commander Luis Altamirano calling the prospective partnership “deplorable.”

Blackwater gained notoriety in 2007 during the Iraq War, when its private contractors opened fire in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, killing 17 Iraqi civilians. The company then changed its name and Prince sold it in 2010. Four contractors were convicted and later pardoned by Trump.

Asked about Prince’s history, Noboa told the BBC Ecuador’s laws need to be respected.

Noboa’s escalating tactics against the gangs come as Ecuador prepares for a run-off presidential vote next month. Noboa fell short of winning an outright majority in the country’s general election last month, and has since doubled down on his tough-on-crime approach – an approach criticized by human rights groups and slammed by his political opponent Luisa Gonzalez – an ally of former leftist president Rafael Correa – who accuses him of being a leader that “represents fear.”

Noboa has labeled several gangs in the country as terror groups. Speaking to the BBC, Noboa called for US President Donald Trump to do the same.

The State Department has given Ecuador $81 million since 2018 to help the country with its fight against organized crime and narcotics. The two countries also have an agreement that allows US military and civilian personnel to be sent to Ecuador but remain under US control if needed.

Mexico City’s local congress on Tuesday passed a measure aiming to make bullfights much less harmful to bulls and matadors, a move applauded by animal rights activists but sharply criticized by fans of the centuries-old tradition.

The measure, among other things, will not allow bullfighters to use spades and swords to attack the animal, which in turn will have its horns covered to prevent injuries to humans.

The bill, introduced by Mayor Clara Brugada of the ruling Morena party, passed with 61 votes in favor and one against.

Outside of the local congress, dozens of bullfighting fans clashed with police. Some broke past a barrier and attempted to force their way inside of the building. Other demonstrators held up signs announcing their respect for the bull.

On March 1, bullfighter Emilio Macias was seriously injured in the neighboring state of Tlaxcala after being pierced in the behind by a bull’s horn.

“The aim is not to make bullfighting disappear, but evolve,” lawmaker Victor Hugo Romo de Vivar said.

Mayor Brugada celebrated the bill’s passing on X, saying it was a step into turning the capital into “a city which respects animal rights, and which will not tolerate them being subjected to abuse or violence.”

The bill will go into effect in 210 calendar days, giving the government time to issue new regulations on bullfighting.

Mexico City is home to the world’s largest bullring, even larger than those in Spain, which birthed the tradition. Bullfighting in Mexico dates back to 1529 – the time of conquistador Hernan Cortes – in what is now Mexico City.

In recent years, several other Latin American countries have banned bullfighting. Last year, Colombia passed a measure to phase out bullfights by 2027.

Venezuela’s leader has described the deportation of more than 200 mostly Venezuelan migrants sent by the United States to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador as a “kidnapping,” and denied they are criminals while backing calls for their return.

“Nayib Bukele should not be an accomplice to this kidnapping, because our boys did not commit any crime in the United States, none,” Nicolas Maduro told supporters Wednesday, referencing El Salvador’s leader, who has struck a deal with US President Donald Trump.

“They were not brought to trial, they were not given the right to a defense, the right to due process, they were deceived, handcuffed, put on a plane, kidnapped, and sent to a concentration camp in El Salvador,” Maduro added.

The Venezuelan leader, who has ruled with an iron fist since 2013, said his government will deliver El Salvador an “official document” to request the return of the Venezuelan deportees, which will have the support of “millions” of signatures of Venezuelan citizens.

Over the weekend, Trump invoked an 18th-century wartime law to deport 238 Venezuelans it claims are part of the Tren de Aragua gang despite a court ruling halting the move, deepening tensions between the US and Venezuela. He defended the move arguing the US faced an “invasion” of migrants and described those deported as “a bad group of, as I say, hombres.”

The Venezuelans, along with 23 Salvadorans also deported, were sent to the Counter-Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in Tecoluca, El Salvador, as part of an agreement between the US and El Salvador. The prison is notorious for the ruthless way it treats prisoners, which human rights organizations say is inhumane and violates human rights.

Venezuelans took to the streets of the capital Caracas Tuesday to rally against the deportations. Some claimed they identified their loved ones among the deported group in videos and photos shown on the news. Some relatives of men sent to El Salvador said their loved ones were not criminals and demanded they be returned home.

Maduro backed those calls.

“I celebrate that millions of men and women from Venezuela have come out to support the families of these young Venezuelans with their signatures, to officially demand that the Government of El Salvador free them from this kidnapping, not subject them to humiliation, and return them to us sooner rather than later,” he said.

The White House has not presented evidence that the deported Venezuelans belong to Tren de Aragua, a group linked to human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling and other crimes. In January, Trump designated Tren de Aragus and the Salvadoran MS-13 gang as foreign terrorist organizations.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency said this week it conducted a thorough review of the profiles of the individuals in question to verify that they are part of criminal groups. The names of the deported individuals have not been released.

Some Venezuelans previously deported by the Trump administration have insisted they have nothing to do with the gang, such as Daniel Simancas Rodríguez, who spent 15 days in detention at Guantanamo Bay before being deported to Venezuela.

Maduro said Wednesday he ordered his government to increase the number of flights repatriating Venezuelan migrants detained in the US.

“We are going to return all migrants who have been detained to give them respect, dignity, support, and to return to their homeland and their families,” he said.

Indonesia’s parliament on Thursday passed contentious revisions to the country’s military law, which will allocate more civilian posts for military officers, and street protests against the changes are expected to take place.

The revisions have been criticized by civil society groups, who say it could take the world’s third-biggest democracy back to the draconian “New Order” era of former strongman president Suharto, when military officers dominated civilian affairs.

Speaker Puan Maharani led the unanimous vote in a plenary council and officially passed the law, saying that it was in accordance with the principle of democracy and human rights.

President Prabowo Subianto, who took office last October and was a special forces commander under Suharto, has been expanding the armed forces’ role into what were considered civilian areas, including his flagship program of free meals for children.

Rights groups have criticized the increased military involvement because they fear it may lead to abuses of power, human rights violations, and impunity from consequences for actions.

The government has said the bill requires officers to resign from the military before assuming civilian posts at departments such as the Attorney’s General Office and a lawmaker has said officers could not join state-owned companies, to counter concerns the military would be involved in business.

Protesters from several democracy groups and students have said they will stage rallies in front of the parliamentary building in Jakarta.

Some students had camped at the back gate of parliamentary building since Wednesday evening, protesting the law and demanding the government pull out all military personnel from civilian jobs.

Police officers forced them to leave the building but they refused, one protestor who declined to be named told Reuters. There were just a few dozen protesters at the time the bill was passed by parliament.

Military personnel were called in for security in the parliamentary building to assist police.

“The geopolitical changes and global military technology require the military to transform … to face conventional and non conventional conflicts,” Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin told parliament, while defending the revised law.

“We will never disappoint the Indonesians in keeping our sovereignty,” he added, but did not specify what geopolitical challenges he was referring to.

Canada said on Wednesday that China had executed four Canadian citizens on drugs smuggling charges earlier this year, and strongly condemned Beijing’s use of the death penalty.

Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told reporters that all four had been dual citizens and said Ottawa would ask for leniency for other Canadians facing the same fate.

“There are four Canadians that have been executed and therefore we are strongly condemning what happened,” she said, adding that all four had been convicted on drugs charges.

Separately, the Canadian Foreign Ministry said that Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian man sentenced to death in 2019 for drug smuggling, had not been executed.

Canada-China ties have been icy since 2018 when Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecoms firm Huawei, was detained in Vancouver at the Trump administration’s request. China arrested two Canadians shortly afterwards.

Meng and the Canadian duo were released in 2021.

Earlier this month Beijing announced tariffs on over $2.6 billion worth of Canadian agricultural and food products, retaliating against levies Ottawa slapped on Chinese electric vehicles and steel and aluminum products last year.

In a statement, the Chinese embassy in Ottawa said Canada was making irresponsible remarks.

“China always imposed severe penalties on drug-related crimes and maintains a ‘zero tolerance’ attitude towards the drug problem,” it said, without confirming that any executions had taken place.

In the rural town of Petersham, Massachusetts, 78-year-old Peter George keeps 1,000 fish in his basement.

“Baseball, sex, fish,” he says, listing his life’s great loves. “My single greatest attribute is that I am passionate about things. That sort of defines me.”

All of George’s fish are endangered Rift Lake cichlids: colorful, freshwater fish native to the Great Lakes of East Africa. Inside his 42 tanks, expertly squeezed into a single subterranean room, the fish shimmer under artificial lights, knowing nothing of the expansive waters in which their ancestors once swam, thousands of miles away.

Due to pollution, climate change and overfishing, freshwater fish are thought to be the second most endangered vertebrates in the world. In Lake Victoria, a giant lake shared between Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, over a quarter of endemic species, including countless cichlids, are either critically endangered or extinct.

But for some species, there is still hope. A community of rare fish enthusiasts collect endangered species of freshwater fish from the lakes and springs of East Africa, Mexico and elsewhere, and preserve them in their personal fish tanks in the hope that they might one day be reintroduced in the wild.

“I’m a hard ass,” George says. “There is hope.”

Insurance

George has been collecting fish since 1948 when, as a four-year-old in the Bronx, he would look after his grandmother’s rainbow fish. He soon developed “multiple tank syndrome” – a colloquial term used by fish collectors to denote the spiral commonly experienced after acquiring one’s first tank, which involves the sufferer buying many more tanks within a short space of time. He has not stopped collecting since.

Now, George sees himself as a conservationist; his tanks contain what is known as “insurance populations” – populations of endangered fish that are likely to go extinct in their natural habitats. He believes that when the time is right, they can be taken from his collection and returned to their homes. “I would never accept the fact that they couldn’t be reintroduced,” he says.

Other fish collectors aren’t so bullish. “God bless those people that think that we can reintroduce these fish,” says Pam Chin, owner of 2,000 cichlids kept in her custom “fish house,” and founder of “Babes in the Cichlid Hobby,” a group representing the tiny minority of women collectors, “but my past experience with it was not successful.”

Chin was involved in a reintroduction effort for a cichlid species in Lake Malawi in 2019, but she says logistical obstacles have meant that no one has returned to see if the population survived. Soon after reintroducing them into the lake, Chin saw the same fish pop up on the European fish collectors’ market.

“You bring the population back and the collectors just go back in and collect it up,” she says, frustrated. And that’s on top of legal restrictions around reintroduction, she explains, as well as the possibility that the old habitats are now too polluted, taken over by other fish, or destroyed. Many freshwater fish are highly endemic; the entire range of a species is often as small as a football field. When it’s gone, it’s gone. Other reintroductions have had, according to Chin, “questionable” levels of success.

However, along with Babes in the Cichlid Hobby, Chin has raised more than $200,000 for cichlid conservation. “A species in a tank is better than no species at all,” she says. “Because still, in the back of our hearts, we hope someday that they could be reintroduced.”

Hope

Michael Köck is at the forefront of reintroducing goodeids, an endangered freshwater fish found in Mexico, and founder of the Goodeid Working Group (GWG), a worldwide collaboration between fish hobbyists and scientists.

Formerly an aquarium curator in Vienna, Köck now lives and works in Mexico, on the frontline of the goodeids’ fight for survival.

Behind big round glasses, he recalls his youth when he would wander the forests of Austria, encountering springs bursting with biodiversity. “I just want to keep part of the paradise that I had when I was a child,” he says.

He believes he is on the way to achieving his goal. Köck, along with Chester Zoo in England and Michoacana University in Mexico, is behind what he says is the world’s only successful reintroduction of goodeids from captive populations – that of the Tequila splitfin, a small, gray fish with a bright orange lining on its tail. In 2021, Köck’s project became the first-ever successful reintroduction in Mexico of a fish classified as extinct in the wild, and the GWG has since been involved in reintroductions of other freshwater fish elsewhere in the country. Köck is in the process of replicating the process with more species.

“We have a recipe for bringing one species back,” Köck says. “We can change the course of the planet. We can turn the wheel around and make it a place where kids can go to swim in a river that’s full of native fish.”

It’s a message echoed by the institutions with whom Köck, and his team of hobbyists, work.

“There are species that would have become extinct if they had not been maintained by dedicated individuals and zoos,” says Becky Goodwin, aquarist at Chester Zoo.
“(But) any individual, whether it is a person at home or an institution, doesn’t have the capacity to hold viable and healthy populations alone. This is why larger collaborations are so important.”

All Köck needs, he says, is for other fish collectors to hold firm, and to collaborate with dedicated institutions when the time is right. “There’s always hope,” he insists.
“At the moment it’s not possible (to reintroduce all the fish), but keep them as long as possible, and in the future there will be a chance.”

Motivation

With emotion clear in his voice, Michael Tobler, a goodeid collector in St Louis, Missouri, comes closest to explaining why the resolve of the community is so strong. “They’re like a friend,” he says of his fish, “I don’t want them to go.”

And then there are the human connections found in online forums and annual conventions, where animated conversations about fish stretch long into the night. Collectors exchange childhood memories of their grandmothers’ fish tanks, or the time they spent in forests and creeks, where springs were rich with wildlife. And, above all, they discuss their hope for the future – the same hope cultivated by conservationists of every animal, from the mightiest rhino to the smallest, grayest fish: that one day their species will be back in the wild.

“You just have to control what you can control,” says George. “I get satisfaction out of being able to do what I can do rather than focusing on the frustrations of not being able to do pretty much anything else.”

So, when he wakes on another Massachusetts morning, George descends the stairs to his basement and spends the next few hours tending to his fish in their glass tanks – feeding them, purifying their water, ensuring their species never die. And the same daily process is undergone by thousands of collectors around the world – all patiently biding their time.

“It’s really weird to get infatuated with tiny little gray fish, right?” Tobler says. “But luckily some people do.”

Jihad Suleiman Al-Sawafta, 46, has lived on his farm in the occupied West Bank village of Bardala his entire life. But when Israeli settlers showed up in December, Al-Sawafta said his land, and his livelihood, shrank to a fraction of its former self.

“They crowded the area. They took thousands of dunams (1,000 square meters) from Bardala and its grazing lands,” he said, referring to his Palestinian town in the northern part of the West Bank. He added that the Jordan Valley, a fertile strip of land long considered the West Bank’s breadbasket, had been “largely emptied”of its Palestinian residents.

Herding outposts like the one set up on Al-Sawafta’s land are often established by Israeli settlers on hilltops with a few caravans and sometimes livestock to mark their claim. Monitoring groups say they are notorious for swallowing up vast swathes of land and prohibiting Palestinian residents from moving freely. The outposts are illegal under both Israeli and international law, and the state is not allowed to finance or build on them.

The number of Israeli herding outposts has dramatically increased since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition took power in 2022 on a platform of settlement expansion. The government includes ministers who are themselves settlers and want to annex the occupied territory to Israel. In the wake of the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, which triggered Israel’s invasion of Gaza, settlers have accelerated land grabs with support from the state.

Peace Now and Kerem Navot estimate that shepherding outposts, occupied by a few hundred settlers, now cover almost 14% of the West Bank. Some of the unauthorized outposts are run by extremist Israeli settlers and settler groups that were sanctioned under the Biden administration, according to the monitoring groups.

Of the total land seized by settlers in the West Bank since the 1990s using herding outposts, 70% has been taken in the last two and half years alone, the report found.

‘Empowered to do whatever they want’

There is no official planning approval for outposts, unlike officially recognized Jewish settlements, which tend to be larger, more organized urban developments. Settlements are considered illegal under international law and by much of the international community, but Israel disputes that.

For Palestinians living near the outposts, their expansion in recent years has often meant losing access to their land and natural resources, as roads, fences, and settler activity gradually cut them off.

The land grabs have gone hand-in-hand with an escalation in violence by Israeli security forces and settlers against Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank.

Israel’s defense minister said at the end of February that he had instructed the military to “prevent the return of residents” who had been displaced by Israel’s military operations in four refugee camps in the northern part of the territory beginning January 21. The United Nations estimated that some 40,000 have been forced to flee their homes.

There are also mounting concerns among Palestinians that US President Donald Trump may endorse annexation of the occupied territory, which is home to more than 3 million Palestinians. “We’re discussing that with many of your representatives,” Trump said in a joint press conference with Netanyahu in Washington, DC, in February. “People do like the idea, but we haven’t taken a position on it yet.”

His proposal for Gaza to be emptied of its inhabitants and developed have raised alarm among rights groups and Palestinian communities, who worry a similar rhetoric could be applied to the occupied West Bank.

Israel seized the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967. It annexed East Jerusalem, which is also considered occupied under international law, in 1980.

According to the report from Peace Now and Kerem Navot, more than 60 Palestinian shepherding communities have been forcibly displaced since July 2022 – the majority of these since October 7.

“The idea behind it is clear, it is to take the open areas in the West Bank to make sure Palestinians cannot access them, and eventually to hand them over to Israeli settlers.”

In July last year, the United Nations’ top court said Israel should end its decades-long occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, evacuating settlers from the territories designated for a future Palestinian state and halting any new settlement activity. Israel’s foreign minister at the time rejected the non-binding ruling as “fundamentally wrong” and one-sided.

Despite outposts being illegal even under Israeli law, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said there is a “consistent pattern of Israeli authorities’ involvement, assistance and financing of the construction of outposts, as well as their operation.”

Documents uncovered by Peace Now last year showed how the Israeli government has budgeted millions to protect the small, unauthorized farms. The monitoring group said the money paid for vehicles, drones, cameras, generators, electric gates, light poles, solar panels and fences.

The Israeli government approved 75 million shekels ($21 million) in December 2023 for providing security in the West Bank to what it called “young settlements.” Orit Strock, the Minister of Settlements and National Mission, told the Associated Press that the funds were coordinated with the Defense Ministry and “carried out in accordance with all laws.”

Israeli law affords the WZO semi-governmental status, giving it authority “for the development and settlement of the country.” The WZO’s Settlement Division, which describes itself as an “arm of the Israeli state” and is funded by Israeli public money, is responsible for managing the allocation of land to “form and strengthen the settlement of Jews in periphery areas, by increasing the hold on the lands of the country that were passed onto the division by the government of Israel,” according to its website.

Most of the land seized by settlers for illegal shepherding outposts is not classified as Israeli state land, according to mapping data from the Israeli Civil Administration analyzed by Peace Now and Kerem Navot. Nearly 60% of the land, around 470 square kilometers, is either privately owned by Palestinians, has unclear ownership, or falls within Palestinian Authority territory, the report said.

Daraghma said that settlers regularly chase away his sheep and terrorize the community’s children late into the night. “They threaten us that if we go up to this mountain there, they will come to us at night. They say, ‘If you go here, we will come to take your children,’” he said.

A few weeks later, he said his family was forced to flee.