JUST AFTER DAWN on a cold morning in December 2024, explosions tore across the volcanic hills near the village of Sahwet Balata in southern Syria’s Sweida governorate (an administrative unit similar to a province). It was one of several Israeli airstrikes that week, part of a broader campaign targeting sites across the country. Villagers awoke to the thunder of collapsing concrete and the sight of smoke rolling through an oak-covered ridgeline as Israeli missiles flattened bunkers at a military base and peeled open a munitions depot with surgical precision.

For years, the base, which includes an old oak grove, had been guarded by Syrian troops and therefore avoided by locals and loggers alike. In a province where many forests were stripped for fuel and profit over 13 years of protracted civil war, the outpost had created an unlikely sanctuary for one of the last intact oak stands in the region.

When the bombs landed, no civilians were hurt. Against the odds, the trees survived as well, their twisted trunks silhouetted against a dusty sky. Beside them, a rusting tank lay tilted on its tracks — abandoned when government forces fled days earlier, following the overthrow of Syria’s former dictator, Bashar al-Assad.

The strikes marked a turning point for the region. With Assad’s army withdrawn, a power vacuum emerged — quickly filled by local militias, spiritual leaders, and improvised civic groups. Instability deepened, and so did uncertainty about what would come next. Locals feared that without some level of protection, the oak grove at the abandoned base would fall to loggers. So villagers organized armed patrols, setting up watches to keep intruders out. One year on, despite worsening economic and humanitarian conditions, some locals are still taking shifts to protect the grove, determined to defend it.

“We need firewood too,” said Youssef, a farmer in his forties who volunteers there regularly and asked to be identified only by his first name due to safety concerns. “But if we cut these trees, what’s left? We’ve already lost enough.”

Reporter Robert Bocciaga details the vast toll that years of wartime and post-war logging have taken on southern Syria’s forests, and profiles the dedicated land defenders who have preserved one of the region’s last remaining oak groves.

Photo by Robert Bociaga

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