In a corner of his house in Salqin, a city in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, agricultural engineer Abdullatif Boubki stacks metal tins filled with olive oil: his land’s harvest from last season. … Olive oil is a strategic commodity that does not lose its value, but worry never leaves Boubki. Water—not olives or oil—is his daily concern. He spends hours browsing local Facebook pages and Telegram channels, searching for updates on water availability through the public network in his neighborhood. … Boubki’s story is a microcosm of the broader situation in Syria, which has topped the Global Conflict Risk Index since 2022 as the most drought-prone country in the Mediterranean. But even as the country suffers an acute water crisis, thousands of cubic meters of groundwater are flowing into the global market in the form of olive oil, an export that represents both national pride and a silent depletion of resources.