Jerusalem Post
Israel’s wars have taken a hidden toll on wildlife and forests: Burned woodlands, disrupted bird migrations, and the world’s first wartime animal hospital reveal nature’s struggle in conflict zones.
By DEBORAH DANAN/JTAFEBRUARY 13, 2025
The trees abutting the road leading to Biriya Forest, a nature preserve in northern Israel, at first resemble spruces turning autumnal shades of red, a sight reminiscent of landscapes in America or Europe but rare in Israel.
A closer look, however, reveals that the trees are only charred remnants — the devastating result of rocket-induced wildfires that destroyed thousands of acres of forest while Israel battled Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Fires break out every year in this forest, which like many others across Israel was planted by the Jewish National Fund, known today as KKL-JNF — but they are usually brought under control quickly. This year, with the local population evacuated and weather conditions unusually extreme, things played out differently.
Starting around May, as temperatures rose, nearly every rocket fired from Lebanon was likely to ignite a fire. And it wasn’t just the rockets themselves: Israeli interceptors exploded overhead, scattering fragments that ignited at multiple points within the forest. The combination of unusual winds, scorching heat and low humidity created a perfect storm that has disrupted entire ecosystems, affected wildlife habitats and undone years of work by foresters aimed at increasing biodiversity.
“We literally witnessed their life’s work go up in smoke,” said Eli Hafuta, director of the Upper Galilee and Golan Region at KKL-JNF, which was founded in 1901 to cultivate Jewish-owned land in the region and today owns 13% of all land in Israel.
“It’s a devastating sight to watch trees that have stood for 70 or 80 years go up in flames,” Hafuta said. “Even younger trees, ones my team and I planted just a decade ago, can be reduced to ashes in just 15 minutes.”
The scorched earth in Biriya Forest reflects just one of many environmental effects of nearly a year and a half of war for Israel. Less visible than the lives lost, injuries sustained and homes destroyed has been devastation to flora and fauna in both Israel’s north and south.
The cascading effects continued this week as the splashy kickoff for a new forest in the western Negev to honor war victims, timed to the Jewish environmental holiday of Tu Bishvat on Thursday, was canceled amid rising security threats in the region. A handful of Israeli officials are instead holding a smaller planting ceremony in the western Negev, at a site named for an officer killed on Oct. 7, 2023.
Perhaps nowhere has the war’s effect on Israeli ecosystems been more pronounced than at the Agamon Hula Valley Nature Reserve, famed for its mesmerizing bird migrations.
Twice a year, hundreds of millions of birds — including cranes, pelicans, and storks — pass through the valley, in a normal year turning it into a hotspot for ecotourism, with the BBC naming it one of the top 10 birdwatching sites in the world.
https://www.jpost.com/environment-and-climate-change/article-841928
TIMES OF ISRAEL
Burned trees, traumatized animals: Nature reveals the unseen effects of Israel’s wars
Missile fire and other factors have disturbed entire ecosystems, affected wildlife habitats and undone years of work by foresters, compounding existing problems from climate change
By DEBORAH DANAN15 February 2025,
Full report: https://www.timesofisrael.com/burned-trees-traumatized-animals-nature-reveals-the-unseen-effects-of-israels-wars/