Syrian Beekeepers Battle Both War and Climate Change 

Syrian beekeeper Ibrahim Damiriya struggles to produce honey from his hives on parched land in Rankus village near the capital Damascus on September 11, 2023 after years of war, economic collapse and worsening climate change. (AFP)
Syrian beekeeper Ibrahim Damiriya struggles to produce honey from his hives on parched land in Rankus village near the capital Damascus on September 11, 2023 after years of war, economic collapse and worsening climate change. (AFP)
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Syrian Beekeepers Battle Both War and Climate Change 

Syrian beekeeper Ibrahim Damiriya struggles to produce honey from his hives on parched land in Rankus village near the capital Damascus on September 11, 2023 after years of war, economic collapse and worsening climate change. (AFP)
Syrian beekeeper Ibrahim Damiriya struggles to produce honey from his hives on parched land in Rankus village near the capital Damascus on September 11, 2023 after years of war, economic collapse and worsening climate change. (AFP)

Syrian beekeeper Ibrahim Damiriya struggles to produce honey from his hives on parched land near the capital Damascus after years of war, economic collapse and worsening climate change impacts.

"The war bled us dry. We could barely keep our beekeeping business afloat, and then the insane weather made things worse," the 62-year-old in a beekeeping suit told AFP as he examined meagre honey stocks inside the hives.

Before Syria's conflict erupted in 2011, Damiriya owned 110 hives in Rankus, a village near Damascus that was once filled with apple orchards.

But now a combination of fighting, severe drought and a grueling economic crisis have left him with a mere 40 hives in semi-arid lands, decimating his honey yield.

Rankus was once renowned for its honey, but was hard hit by fighting between government forces and opposition factions that caused widespread destruction, pushing many residents to flee.

Damiriya can barely afford to tend to his hives, donated by the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) to help Syrian beekeepers.

"If we keep suffering from climate change and rising prices, I might have to abandon my profession," Damiriya said with a sigh.

Since 2011, Syria's war has killed more than half a million people and caused an acute economic crisis, exacerbated by severe Western sanctions.

Recent years have also battered Syria with heatwaves, low rainfall and more forest fires.

'Extreme weather'

A 2019 United Nations report found that fighting had practically wiped out hives, with bombs contaminating the environment and pesticide misuse and a proliferation of parasites speeding up their decline.

Syria used to be home to 635,000 hives before the war, but their numbers had dwindled to about 150,000 at the height of the conflict in 2016, said Iyad Daaboul, the Damascus-based president of the Arab Beekeepers Union.

Today that number has risen back up to 400,000, he said. However, the hives yield only 1,500 tons of honey per year -- half of the country's pre-war production.

Unusually cold springs and drought have had an adverse effect on the flowers that bees feed on.

"Extreme weather conditions have greatly affected bees, especially during spring -- the most important time in their life cycle," said Daaboul.

The number of beekeepers has nearly halved from 32,000 before the war to around 18,000 today, he said.

Another threat to the bees is the forest fires which have become more common as temperatures rise.

Fires "have destroyed more than 1,000 hives on Syria's coastal mountains and stripped bees of large foraging areas", Daaboul said.

'Unusually cold'

Rising temperatures and desertification have taken a toll on Syria's greenery, destroying many of the plants on whose flowers the bees feed and squeezing the once-thriving agriculture sector.

Damascus ICRC spokesperson Suhair Zakkout told AFP that "Syria's agricultural production has fallen by approximately 50 percent over the last 10 years" because of war and climate change.

Despite being one of the countries most badly affected by global warming, Syria has lacked the funds it needs to tackle environmental issues, Zakkout said.

Climate change has devastated farmer Ziad Rankusi's apple orchards, which have also been greatly thinned by illegal logging as people struggle to keep warm during the winter amid recurrent fuel shortages.

Rankusi, who is in his 50s, used to tend more than 1,000 trees on his land, but just 400 survive, and they are drying out in the heat.

"For about five years, we have had unprecedented droughts and desertification, and this year the spring was unusually cold. The fruit perished," said the farmer.

"When trees and flowers disappear, bees can no longer feed. They either migrate or die."



Iran-Israel War: A Lifeline for Netanyahu?

FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
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Iran-Israel War: A Lifeline for Netanyahu?

FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)

The Iran-Israel war has helped strengthen Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu domestically and overseas, just as his grip on power looked vulnerable.

On the eve of launching strikes on Iran, his government looked to be on the verge of collapse, with a drive to conscript ultra-Orthodox Jews threatening to scupper his fragile coalition.

Nearly two years on from Hamas's unprecedented attack in 2023, Netanyahu was under growing domestic criticism for his handling of the war in Gaza, where dozens of hostages remain unaccounted for, said AFP.

Internationally too, he was coming under pressure including from longstanding allies, who since the war with Iran began have gone back to expressing support.

Just days ago, polls were predicting Netanyahu would lose his majority if new elections were held, but now, his fortunes appear to have reversed, and Israelis are seeing in "Bibi" the man of the moment.

– 'Reshape the Middle East' –

For decades, Netanyahu has warned of the risk of a nuclear attack on Israel by Iran -- a fear shared by most Israelis.

Yonatan Freeman, a geopolitics expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said Netanyahu's argument that the pre-emptive strike on Iran was necessary draws "a lot of public support" and that the prime minister has been "greatly strengthened".

Even the opposition has rallied behind him.

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is my political rival, but his decision to strike Iran at this moment in time is the right one," opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote in a Jerusalem Post op-ed.

A poll published Saturday by a conservative Israeli channel showed that 54 percent of respondents expressed confidence in the prime minister.

The public had had time to prepare for the possibility of an offensive against Iran, with Netanyahu repeatedly warning that Israel was fighting for its survival and had an opportunity to "reshape the Middle East."

During tit-for-tat military exchanges last year, Israel launched air raids on targets in Iran in October that are thought to have severely damaged Iranian air defenses.

Israel's then-defense minister Yoav Gallant said the strikes had shifted "the balance of power" and had "weakened" Iran.

"In fact, for the past 20 months, Israelis have been thinking about this (a war with Iran)," said Denis Charbit, a political scientist at Israel's Open University.

Since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Netanyahu has ordered military action in Gaza, against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as targets in Syria where long-time leader Bashar al-Assad fell in December last year.

"Netanyahu always wants to dominate the agenda, to be the one who reshuffles the deck himself -- not the one who reacts -- and here he is clearly asserting his Churchillian side, which is, incidentally, his model," Charbit said.

"But depending on the outcome and the duration (of the war), everything could change, and Israelis might turn against Bibi and demand answers."

– Silencing critics –

For now, however, people in Israel see the conflict with Iran as a "necessary war," according to Nitzan Perelman, a researcher specialized in Israel at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France.

"Public opinion supports this war, just as it has supported previous ones," she added.

"It's very useful for Netanyahu because it silences criticism, both inside the country and abroad."

In the weeks ahead of the Iran strikes, international criticism of Netanyahu and Israel's military had reached unprecedented levels.

After more than 55,000 deaths in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, and a blockade that has produced famine-like conditions there, Israel has faced growing isolation and the risk of sanctions, while Netanyahu himself is the subject of an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes.

But on Sunday, two days into the war with Iran, the Israeli leader received a phone call from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, while Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has held talks with numerous counterparts.

"There's more consensus in Europe in how they see Iran, which is more equal to how Israel sees Iran," explained Freeman from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday that Israel was doing "the dirty work... for all of us."

The idea that a weakened Iran could lead to regional peace and the emergence of a new Middle East is appealing to the United States and some European countries, according to Freeman.

But for Perelman, "Netanyahu is exploiting the Iranian threat, as he always has."