Clockwise from top left: Badr Abu Alia, whose home was raided by Israeli soldiers; Majeda al-Rajaby, a West Bank teacher divided from her children; Nael al-Azza, who dreads his daily drive to work because he must pass through an Israeli checkpoint; Sondos Mleitat, who operates a website connecting Palestinians with psychotherapists. Muhammad Sandouka built his home in the shadow of the Temple Mount before his second son, now 15, was born. They demolished it together, after the Israeli authorities decided that razing it would improve views of the Old City for tourists. Mr. Sandouka, 42, a countertop in- staller, had been at work when an in- spector confronted his wife with two op- tions: Tear the house down, or the gov- ernment would not only level it but also bill the Sandoukas $10,000 for its ex- penses. Such is life for Palestinians living un- der Israel’s occupation: always dread- ing the knock at the front door. The looming removal of six Palestin- ian families from their homes in East Je- rusalem set off a round of protests that helped ignite the latest war between Is- rael and Gaza. But to the roughly three million Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 war and has con- trolled through decades of failed peace talks, the story was exceptional only be- cause it attracted an international spot- light. For the most part, they endure the frights and indignities of the Israeli oc- cupation in obscurity. Even in supposedly quiet periods, when the world is not paying attention, Palestinians from all walks of life rou- tinely experience exasperating impossi- bilities and petty humiliations, bureau- cratic controls that force agonizing choices, and the fragility and cruelty of life under military rule, now in its sec- ond half-century. Underneath that quiet, pressure builds. If the eviction dispute in East Jerusa- lem struck a match, the occupation’s provocations ceaselessly pile up dry kindling. They are a constant and key driver of the conflict, giving Hamas an excuse to fire rockets or lone-wolf at- tackers grievances to channel into killings by knives or automobiles. And the provocations do not stop when the fighting ends. No homeowner welcomes a visit from the code-enforcement officer. But it’s en- tirely different in East Jerusalem, where Palestinians find it nearly impossible to obtain building permits and most homes were built without them: The penalty is often demolition. Mr. Sandouka grew up just downhill from the Old City’s eastern ramparts, in the valley dividing the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives. At 19, he married and moved into an old addition onto his father’s house, then began expanding it. New stone walls tri- pled the floor area. He laid tile, hung drywall and furnished a cozy kitchen. He spent around $150,000. Children came, six in all. Ramadan brought picnickers to the green valley. The kids played host, delivering cold water or hot soup. His wife prepared feasts of maqluba (chicken and rice) and mansaf (lamb in yogurt sauce). He walked with his sons up to Al Aqsa, one of Islam’s holiest sites. In 2016, city workers posted an ad- dress marker over Mr. Sandouka’s gate. It felt like legitimization. But Israel was drifting steadily right- ward. The state parks authority fell un- der the influence of settlers, who seek to expand Jewish control over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Citing an old plan for a park encircling the Old City, the authority set about clearing one un- permitted house after another. Now it was Mr. Sandouka’s turn. Plans showed a corner of the house encroaching on a future tour-bus park- ing lot. Zeev Hacohen, an authority official, said erasing Mr. Sandouka’s neighbor- hood was necessary to restore views of the Old City “as they were in the days of the Bible.” “The personal stories are always ISRAEL, PAGE 4 The indignity of occupation Violence is often sudden and brief. But the nagging dread it instills can be just as debilitating. PHOTOGRAPHS BY SAMAR HAZBOUN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES JERUSALEM An eviction that sparked Israel’s war typifies the daily fears of Palestinians BY DAVID M. HALBFINGER AND ADAM RASGON .. INTERNATIONAL EDITION | MONDAY, MAY 24, 2021 SUPER LEAGUE TEAMS SAW FIFA AS A SILENT ALLY PAGE 11 | SPORTS ‘SHREK’ TURNS 20 BELOVED HIT HAD A CHAOTIC START PAGE 13 | CULTURE ‘I WANT TO BE EDUCATED’ FLEEING TALIBAN AREAS FOR A CHANCE TO LEARN PAGE 3 | WORLD For years after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo office, the most unbearable words for Corinne Rey, known as Coco, were, “In your place.” Other people couldn’t put themselves in her place at the satirical magazine. Others couldn’t know what they would have done. On Jan. 7, 2015, Ms. Rey, a cartoonist, was leaving the magazine’s Paris offices to pick up her 1-year-old daughter from day care when she was confronted by two masked men brandishing assault ri- fles. They pointed the guns at her head. “Take us to Charlie Hebdo!” they shouted. “You have insulted the Proph- et.” In her recently published graphic novel, “To Draw Again,” Ms. Rey, 38, portrays herself as a small, trembling figure being tracked up the stairs by two immense featureless shapes whose weapons bear down on her. “That is how I saw them,” she said in a recent inter- view in Paris. “Monsters, dressed in black, huge, with no human trait.” Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, the terror- ists, had a clear objective: to avenge Charlie Hebdo’s publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by killing its editor, Stéphane Charbonnier, known as Charb, and the staff. They prodded Ms. Rey at gunpoint toward the Charlie of- fice. “It’s you or Charb,” the brothers said as they ordered her to enter the code that would open the locked door. “IT’S YOU OR CHARB!” Coco’s choice. “The guns were a few centimeters COCO, PAGE 2 Surviving a massacre, and keeping dissent alive The cartoonist Corinne Rey, known as Coco, in Paris in March. Six years ago, two armed terrorists forced her to unlock the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. JAMES HILL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES PROFILE PARIS BY ROGER COHEN A cartoonist illustrates her road back from hell after a deadly terror attack The New York Times publishes opinion from a wide range of perspectives in hopes of promoting constructive debate about consequential questions. All over the world, countries are con- fronting population stagnation and a fertility bust, a dizzying reversal un- matched in recorded history that will make first-birthday parties a rarer sight than funerals, and empty homes a com- mon eyesore. Maternity wards are already shutting down in Italy. Ghost cities are appearing in northeastern China. Universities in South Korea can’t find enough students, and in Germany, hundreds of thousands of properties have been razed, with the land turned into parks. Like an avalanche, the demographic forces — pushing toward more deaths than births — seem to be expanding and accelerating. Though some countries continue to see their populations grow, especially in Africa, fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere else. Demog- raphers now predict that by the latter half of the century or possibly earlier, the global population will enter a sus- tained decline for the first time. A planet with fewer people could ease pressure on resources, slow the destruc- tive impact of climate change and re- duce household burdens for women. But the census announcements this month from China and the United States, which showed the slowest rates of population growth in decades for both countries, also point to hard-to-fathom adjust- ments. The strain of longer lives and low fer- tility, leading to fewer workers and more retirees, threatens to upend how socie- ties are organized — around the notion that a surplus of young people will drive economies and help pay for the old. It may also require a reconceptualization of family and nation. Imagine entire re- gions where everyone is 70 or older. Imagine governments laying out huge bonuses for immigrants and mothers with lots of children. Imagine a gig econ- omy filled with grandparents and Super Bowl ads promoting procreation. “A paradigm shift is necessary,” said Frank Swiaczny, a German demogra- pher who was the chief of population trends and analysis for the United Na- tions until last year. “Countries need to learn to live with and adapt to decline.” The ramifications and responses have already begun to appear, especially in East Asia and Europe. In nations as di- verse as China, Hungary, Japan and Sweden, governments struggle to bal- ance demands of a swelling older cohort with the needs of young people whose most intimate decisions about child- bearing are being shaped by factors both positive (more work opportunities for women) and negative (persistent gender inequality and high living costs). POPULATION, PAGE 2 World faces startling shift in population As fertility rates plunge, rapid declines loom, as well as economic issues BY DAMIEN CAVE, EMMA BUBOLA AND CHOE SANG-HUN When Joe Biden assumed the presi- dency in January, he embarked on a mission to reverse a slew of policies put in place by former President Don- ald Trump while leaving untouched the elite foreign policy consensus. Mr. Biden issued 42 executive orders in his first 100 days — more than than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt — and has waged a method- ical campaign against Mr. Trump’s agenda. With one major exception: Afghanistan. Beginning with his campaign for the presidency, Mr. Trump railed against America’s forever wars and pledged to bring American troops home and to get out of Afghanistan. Despite his rheto- ric, Mr. Trump vacillated between winding down some Obama-era lethal U.S. campaigns (in Pakistan and Lib- ya) and expanding others (in Syria, Somalia and Yem- en). He loosened the dubious Obama- era restrictions on killing civilians in airstrikes after suggesting, when he was a candidate, that the United States should kill the families of suspected terrorists. He also reauthorized the C.I.A. to conduct drone operations after Barack Obama’s administration shifted those powers to the Pentagon. Mr. Trump basked in his self-per- ceived glory when in April 2017 the United States dropped the 21,600- pound “mother of all bombs,” the most powerful nonnuclear weapon, on a village in Afghanistan. In 2019 alone, the United States carried out more than 2,400 airstrikes in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, Mr. Trump made a serious, if clumsy and contradictory, attempt in the latter half of his term to make good on his promise to end the Afghanistan war. His administration struck a deal with the Taliban, offering an American commitment to withdraw troops from Afghanistan by May 2021 for a Taliban promise not to allow the country to be used by transnational terrorists. Congressional Democrats and a group of hawkish Republicans led by Representative Liz Cheney were intent on slow-walking the execution of the plan and sought to deny funding for U.S. troop reductions in Afghanistan. There are also indications that some Pentagon and intelligence officials tried to stymie the plan, perhaps hop- ing that Mr. Biden would scrap the deal Yes, Biden should leave Afghanistan Jeremy Scahill OPINION The president is right to ignore the powerful voices in Washington pushing him to reverse course. SCAHILL, PAGE 10 On campus. Out in the world. Provide your school with digital access to The Times. Learn more at nytimes.com/oncampus. Y(1J85IC*KKOKKR( +=!z!$!$!# Issue Number No. 42,979 Andorra € 5.00 Antilles € 4.50 Austria € 4.00 Belgium € 4.00 Bos. & Herz. KM 5.80 Britain £ 2.60 Cameroon CFA 3000 Croatia KN 24.00 Cyprus € 3.40 Czech Rep CZK 115 Denmark Dkr 37 Estonia € 4.00 Finland € 4.00 France € 4.00 Gabon CFA 3000 Germany € 4.00 Greece € 3.40 Hungary HUF 1100 Israel NIS 14.00/ Friday 27.50 Israel / Eilat NIS 12.00/ Friday 23.50 Italy € 3.80 Ivory Coast CFA 3000 Sweden Skr 50 Switzerland CHF 5.20 Syria US$ 3.00 The Netherlands € 4.00 Tunisia Din 8.00 Turkey TL 18 Poland Zl 19 Portugal € 3.90 Republic of Ireland 3.80 Serbia Din 300 Slovenia € 3.40 Spain € 3.90 Luxembourg € 4.00 Malta € 3.80 Montenegro € 3.40 Morocco MAD 35 Norway Nkr 40 Oman OMR 1.50 NEWSSTAND PRICES U.A.E. AED 15.00 United States Military (Europe) $ 2.30