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Australian athlete Catherine Drysdale has won the Antarctic Ice Marathon, becoming the first woman to take the title in the race’s 20-year history. She completed the 42.4-kilometre race in freezing temperatures and strong winds near the South Pole.

Al-Mufaqara, occupied West Bank – In al-Mufaqara, a village in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, the night feels different.

Instead of rest or sleep, it is marked by vigilance and worry for the village’s men who guard their village against attacks by Israeli settlers from nearby illegal settlements and outposts.

When the sun sets, their vigil begins as they gather on a high hill overlooking the village, where they sit surrounded by old tyres stacked to make a wall to protect them from the cold wind.

In their system, everyone has a job: Some carry the torches, others prepare dinner, and one man brews sage tea, which is always bubbling away on the fire, giving them warmth and energy through the long, cold night.

Their laughter pierces the darkness, but it cannot hide the fear that pervades the space.

“Our task isn’t easy, but it’s also not impossible,” one of them says.

“The night is ours, as long as we guard it.”

A village facing it alone

Al-Mufaqara is home to about 23 families comprising 220 people, including 50 children. Its inhabitants rely on herding, agriculture, and animal husbandry.

But this simple way of life is met with daily attacks from settlers and Israeli authorities, who have demolished their homes repeatedly, destroyed their agricultural lands, burned their dwellings, and even resorted to murder.

The latest victim here was a symbol of resistance, Awda al-Hathalin, who was shot by an Israeli settler.

Others have been injured, some even losing limbs, in other attacks.

It was this relentless danger that made the villagers decide to establish the Mountain Guardians Committee – a group of about 30 young men who spend the night on the hill overlooking the settlements and the village, taking turns to guard from sunset to sunrise.

The name comes from their elevated position overlooking the village and the settlements, where they observe nighttime movements and alert the villagers.

There’s a team of scout monitors, a team managing lights and alarms, a team that feeds everyone and makes hot drinks, and a support team, assisted by some elders who pass by with coffee or sunflower seeds for the watchers – the items as much symbols of solidarity and steadfastness as they are snacks.

Hamida, a mother’s fear and hope

Hamida Ali Hamamda is a 51-year-old mother of nine, ranging in age from 33-year-old Mufid to 20-year-old Bayan. She lives with her 53-year-old husband, Qassem Hamamda, in one of the village’s mud-brick houses.

“Life in al-Mufaqara was sweet and simple… We lived in safety, and the sheep grazed freely, until fear came,” Hamamda says, looking out of her window at the hills.

Life has changed since October 7, 2023, she explains, recounting how Israeli settlers break into homes with stones and insults, threaten residents with death and displacement and release their sheep onto Palestinian lands to destroy crops and trees, land that many Palestinian owners cannot access.

She describes an incident where four settlers approached their home after seizing a nearby cave, throwing the family that lives there out.

“They told my husband: ‘You have to leave here. This isn’t Palestinian land.’

“Life has lost its meaning… Everything has become hardship, with no comfort or security.”

Hamada dreams of an end to the danger posed by the settlements, and that her grandchildren can live in safety, going to school without fear.

Families in the village have resorted to simple protective measures for their homes, she says, like barbed wire on windows and dogs in the yard that bark at approaching danger.

But, she says: “If it weren’t for the guard committees, we wouldn’t sleep a wink… They are our first line of defence.”

The hand that feeds the guards

Hamamda does her part to help guard the village – every night, she asks a village woman who prepares homemade sweets, cakes and other treats to send some up to the young guards in the hills.

“They guard us, and we send them sweets… At least we share something small to ease their burden.”

Hamamda’s granddaughter, 11-year-old Asala, Mufid’s daughter, has grown up with more fear than she knows play.

Pointing to a hole in the ground, she explains: “When the settlers attack the village, we run here … to the cave.”

She describes it as their underground haven, the place where she and her younger siblings hide away from windows and doors.

“In my nightmares, I see them attacking us… I wish I could live my childhood and go to school without fear.”

On the outskirts of al-Mufaqara, Qassem Hamamda stands contemplating the new settlements crowding the horizon around his village.

Before October 7, 2023, the settlements of Avigail and Havat Ma’on surrounded it.

Today, settler encroachment is painfully clear, with five new outposts, illegal even under Israeli law, set up around the village.

Qassem tells the same story his wife told.

“They came after seizing a cave near my house and threatened to force me out. I told them, ‘You want me to just leave? How?

This is my land, inherited from my father and grandfather… I won’t leave it. I’ll die here.’”

He adds that the protection committee has made things better.

“I feel a little safer. The elderly and women sleep with relative peace of mind… but we need a tent to protect the young people from the winter cold.”

Watchful eyes of the night

Torchlight shines in the hand of Muath al-Hamamda, 32, a farmer, father of three, and one of the most prominent members of the protection committee.

“We keep watch all night because an attack while you’re asleep is much more dangerous than an attack while you’re awake,” he says, eyes darting around him at the hills.

He estimates that the presence of the mountain guards has reduced attacks by more than 80 percent, because the settlers no longer find the village unguarded.

When an attack occurs, the committee moves quickly.

One group rushes children and women to underground caves, another heads for the sheep pens to protect the villagers’ livestock, while a third confronts the settlers until reinforcements arrive.

“We all know that the settler is merciless,” Muath says. “But the Palestinian will not abandon his land. Even the children here know that the land is life.”

Near the guard post, Jalal al-Amour, 47, crouches near the fire, stirring a large pot, the aroma of chicken livers he prepared wafting from it.

The spot where he is cooking was his home, he says, pointing at a nearby cave with a Star of David at its mouth and an Israeli flag flying above it.

“I was born in this cave, I lived in it with my father and grandfather… until the settlers came, they forcibly evicted us, they destroyed everything.

“When we complained to the police, they said: ‘It’s a closed military zone.’”

Al-Amour cooks for the guards every night. “Every day we choose a different dish, trying to keep the place warm… Fire and smoke are all that remain of the scent of home.”

As dawn approaches, the lights fade over the hills.

Tired faces smile as they see the first rays of morning. The young men go home, some to their sheep, others to a short sleep before a new day.

Between moonrise and sunrise, the mountain’s guardians have done their duty, awake through the night to protect a village that wants to stay on its land.

The murder of at least 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach by two gunmen on Sunday was a rare occurrence in a country that is known for its strict gun laws.

The incident, which police describe as a “terrorist” attack, was the worst mass shooting in the country since 1996, when gunman Martin Bryant shot and killed 35 people and injured nearly two dozen others at Port Arthur, a tourist site in the southern island state of Tasmania. Bryant received 35 life sentences, but his motive for the shooting, which prompted a raft of new anti-gun legislation, was never made clear.

Here’s a closer look at what took place, despite Australia’s strict gun laws.

Who were the shooters?

During a news conference on Monday, New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said the suspects were a 50-year-old man, who was shot dead by police at the scene, and his 24-year-old son, who was also shot but remains in hospital in critical, but stable, condition.

Lanyon said the father “is a licensed firearms holder who had six firearms licensed to him”, emphasising that he “met the eligibility criteria for a firearms licence”.

The police confirmed that the 50-year-old suspect lived in a Sydney suburb and held a New South Wales firearms licence.

How strict are Australia’s gun laws?

Two weeks after the shooting at Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996, the government led by Prime Minister John Howard of the conservative Liberal-National coalition launched the National Firearms Agreement (NFA), which significantly tightened Australia’s gun laws.

The new legislation was effectively an agreement drawn up between the Australian government and Australia’s various states and territories, which adopted the new legislation by passing their own corresponding laws. While specific laws do vary from state to state, they are all guided by the NFA and National Handgun Control Agreement measures.

The legislation banned ownership of most automatic and semiautomatic rifles, required gun owners to register their firearms with the police and apply for licences to own them, and initiated a buyback programme that removed some 650,000 assault weapons from public circulation.

It now takes at least 28 days for a gun licence application to be processed.

Under the law, gun owners are required to provide proof of a valid reason for owning a gun. This could be membership in a recreational hunting club, or being employed as a security guard, for example. Gun owners may own multiple firearms as long as they have specific reasons for requiring them.

Owning a gun for the purpose of self-defence is not considered a valid reason and is expressly prohibited in Australia.

Before a gun owner can become fully licensed to own or use a gun, he or she must complete a multi-day safety course, pass a written test, and complete a practical assessment to demonstrate they can safely use and maintain a gun.

After that, Australia’s National Firearms Register conducts background checks to determine whether the applicant has any criminal record or any court-ordered mental health orders.

Those who have committed serious crimes linked to sexual assault, violence, drugs, robbery, “terrorism”, organised crime, illegal weapons, or fraud are barred from holding gun licences.

How common are shootings in Australia?

Mass shootings are very rare in Australia, which is considered a generally safe country.

On the Global Peace Index, which is produced by the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), the country ranks 18th among 163 countries.

In the years immediately following the 1996 passage of the National Firearms Agreement, Australia experienced a handful of shooting incidents, each resulting in no more than three fatalities.

In October 2002, an international student believed to be suffering from paranoid delusions shot and killed two other students on campus at Monash University in Melbourne, Victoria. He injured five others, including a lecturer. After this, handgun laws became even stricter.

In recent years, however, there has been a rise in the number of guns being sold. It is unclear why this is, but some reports link it to increasing demand for hunting sports.

But the mass shooting at Bondi Beach comes just two months after a 60-year-old man in the Sydney suburb of Croydon Park shot up to 50 bullets from his window at cars in a busy street, wounding one person critically, according to police. Fourteen others were treated at the scene for shock or minor injuries, including from glass from shattered car windows, emergency services said.

The suspect in that case was arrested after police stormed his apartment. However, police said he has no links to organised crime or “terror” organisations and no history of mental ill health. They have not established a clear motive for the shooting.

How have the Australian authorities responded to the Bondi Beach shooting?

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday that he will discuss introducing even stronger gun control laws with the National Cabinet.

Albanese told a news conference that the Australian government “is prepared to take whatever action is necessary” and “included in that is the need for tougher gun laws”.

He added that this could mean restrictions on the number of firearms each person is allowed to own or be licensed to use, along with more regular reviews of their licences. The authorities in Australia do carry out firearms licence checks currently, but in most states and territories, these are relatively infrequent unless triggered by a specific incident or raised concern.

“Licences should not be in perpetuity, and checks, of course, making sure that those checks and balances are in place as well,” Albanese said.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told a news conference on Monday: “It does require legislation. It means introducing a bill to Parliament, making it more difficult to get these horrifying weapons that have no practical use in our community.”

How did the Bondi shooting happen despite Australia’s strict gun laws?

“It is very reasonable to ask how another massacre has happened in Australia, given we have extremely strict gun laws,” Samara McPhedran, a principal research fellow at Griffith University in South East Queensland, Australia, told Al Jazeera.

McPhedran, whose research expertise includes gun violence, said that it is too early to know whether there were any failures in the licensing process.

“This is certainly something that police will look at as part of their investigation, and it is important to gather all the facts before rushing to conclusions. It is crucial that we know the exact circumstances that led up to this event, if we are to identify things that may have gone wrong and ways to fix those.”

McPhedran said obtaining a gun licence in any state or territory in Australia is not a quick and simple process, and “obtaining a gun licence is subject to an extensive range of controls”.

She added: “Questions are being asked about the number of firearms – six – that were legally registered to one of the shooters. This number is nothing unusual. Most licence holders own multiple different types of firearms, for different purposes, for example, hunting different types of animals or shooting in different types of competitions.”

What is the solution?

“Although it may seem counterintuitive, the number of firearms, what type they were, and whether the perpetrators were licensed, are not the real issue,” McPhedran said.

In the history of mass shootings in Australia both prior to and after the 1996 Port Arthur shooting, she said, some perpetrators held licences, and some did not. Some perpetrators used semiautomatic firearms; some did not. Most used one or two firearms.

“However, from 1996 onwards, our reaction to firearm violence has always been the same: swift political announcements of bans, buybacks, more laws. We have done this time and time and time again, and it is very clear that this approach does not work to prevent violence,” McPhedran said.

She added, “We can keep doing more of the same and hope for a different result. Or we can try a different approach.”

McPhedran said that for years, politicians have “fostered division and hostility between Australians” based on religious, racial, ethnic, cultural and other identity divisions to win votes, causing lasting harm to communities through increased intolerance and prejudice.

In recent years, successive governments in Australia have clamped down hard on immigration, with many migrants from some countries held for months on end in offshore detention centres on islands such as Nauru and Manus. This has sparked concerns from human rights activists.

In January 2025, the United Nations Human Rights Committee said the Australian government had violated a human rights treaty by detaining a group of asylum seekers, many of them minors on Nauru, despite them being granted refugee status.