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Israel's cowboys care for thousands of cattle as rockets and drones are fired from nearby Lebanon

AP Archive
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(10 Jul 2024) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4505192 ASSOCIATED PRESS Kidmat Tsvi outskirts, Golan Heights - 24 June 2024 1. Various of cowboys and cows in fields 2. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Arnon Nottman, Israeli cowboy: ++PART COVERED BY SHOTS 3,4 “Before the war, there were military drills here, the cows are relatively used to explosions, and to the stress in the field, but now we are carrying out pregnancy tests to check if indeed there is a problem here because of the strikes.” 3. Various of cowboys in fields 4. Various of cattle drive 8. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Erez Ashtanker, Israeli cowboy: “As for now, we live in uncertainty because the situation at the moment is very fragile. You don’t know if the war will continue or won’t continue, if today there will be a barrage or there won’t be a barrage, you don’t know where this is going. We really are trying to plan in the short term, but also in the long term, but all with uncertaint …...more
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Israel's cowboys care for thousands of cattle as rockets and drones are fired from nearby Lebanon
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Jul 152024
(10 Jul 2024) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4505192 ASSOCIATED PRESS Kidmat Tsvi outskirts, Golan Heights - 24 June 2024 1. Various of cowboys and cows in fields 2. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Arnon Nottman, Israeli cowboy: ++PART COVERED BY SHOTS 3,4 “Before the war, there were military drills here, the cows are relatively used to explosions, and to the stress in the field, but now we are carrying out pregnancy tests to check if indeed there is a problem here because of the strikes.” 3. Various of cowboys in fields 4. Various of cattle drive 8. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Erez Ashtanker, Israeli cowboy: “As for now, we live in uncertainty because the situation at the moment is very fragile. You don’t know if the war will continue or won’t continue, if today there will be a barrage or there won’t be a barrage, you don’t know where this is going. We really are trying to plan in the short term, but also in the long term, but all with uncertainty." 5. Various of burnt fields 7. Various of Ashtanker working with cow 10. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Arnon Nottman, Israeli cowboy: “Fields are being burnt, which are the grasslands for cows and after that we don't have anything to give them to eat. We hope that this will end fast, these wars are not for us, we are working people, let us tend cows, let us ride horses in the field, this is the good life.” 12. Various of cowboys riding out into field STORYLINE: Israel's cowboys are continuing to care for their herds in the Golan Heights, despite frequent rocket and drone strikes from neighbouring Lebanon. With cease-fire talks faltering in Gaza and no clear way out of the conflict on the Lebanon-Israel border, daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces have sparked fires that have torn through forests and farmland on both sides of the frontline. Even when launches are intercepted, the grasslands where cattle graze can quickly be ignited by falling shrapnel. The Golan Heights' cowboys, whose herds are key to Israel's domestic beef supply, often band together to fight blazes when firefighters cannot arrive quickly enough. “There is a lot of mutual help, in each fire like this, everybody joins, and comes to help with putting the fire out. This is our luck, because alone we wouldn't be able to defeat it,” said cowboy Erez Ashtanker. “Fields are being burnt, which are the grasslands for cows and after that we don't have anything to give them to eat. We hope that this will end fast, these wars are not for us, we are working people, let us tend cows, let us ride horses in the field, this is the good life,” Arnon Nottman, another cowboy told the Associated Press. The cowboys carry out their work in uniquely challenging conditions which make long-term planning difficult, Ashtanker explained. “We live in uncertainty, because the situation at the moment is very fragile," he said. The border clashes began Oct. 8, a day after the Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel that killed around 1,200 people and sparked the war in Gaza. There, more than 37,000 have been killed, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Hezbollah began launching rockets into northern Israel to open what it calls a “support front” for Hamas, to pull Israeli forces away from Gaza. Israel responded, and attacks spread across the border region. In northern Israel, 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed. In Lebanon, more than 450 people — mostly fighters, but also 80-plus civilians and noncombatants — have been killed. In 2006, Israel and Hezbollah fought a monthlong war that ended in a draw. AP video shot by Moshe Edri Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...

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