For decades, Israel’s energy security was defined by scarcity. Lacking substantial domestic fossil-fuel production, it depended heavily on imported coal and oil while remaining largely disconnected from its neighbours’ energy systems. The discovery of the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields changed that equation. Israel became a gas exporter, strengthened its economic relationships with Egypt and Jordan and began presenting itself as an emerging energy hub in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Yet this transformation has produced a paradox.

The same offshore infrastructure that expands Israel’s regional influence also concentrates its energy security in a small number of exposed fields, platforms and pipelines. Gas has provided Israel with diplomatic leverage, but it has simultaneously created new forms of strategic vulnerability.

The same offshore infrastructure that expands Israel’s regional influence also concentrates its energy security in a small number of exposed fields, platforms and pipelines. Gas has provided Israel with diplomatic leverage, but it has simultaneously created new forms of strategic vulnerability.

Gas as an instrument of regional influence

Israel’s gas diplomacy rests principally on three offshore fields: Tamar, Leviathan and Karish. Tamar supplies much of the domestic market, while Leviathan has become the main engine of exports to Egypt and Jordan. In 2024, Israeli gas exports to the two countries increased by 13.4 per cent, despite the continuing war in Gaza. Leviathan produced 11.33 billion cubic metres that year, while Tamar produced 10.09 bcm.

These flows carry significance beyond their commercial value. Jordan uses Israeli gas in its electricity system, while Egypt receives it for domestic consumption and, when market conditions permit, for processing through its liquefied natural gas facilities. Israel therefore no longer interacts with its neighbours only through military and political channels. It has inserted itself into their everyday energy calculations.

The relationship with Egypt has become particularly consequential. In December 2025, Israel approved a $35 billion agreement—first signed by the Leviathan partners in August—to supply approximately 130 bcm of gas to Egypt through 2040. The agreement coincided with declining Egyptian domestic production and growing........

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