Cyprus–Israel Relations

Offshore energy, maritime security, and emergency assistance form closely connected parts of the modern Cyprus–Israel partnership.[4] The countries cooperate bilaterally and through a trilateral framework with Greece, whose discussions encompass defense, internal security, trade, tourism, environmental protection, culture, health, and education.[2] The United States participates in an additional four-party arrangement known as the 3+1 format.[6]

The relationship also has a substantial civilian dimension: Israeli tourists accounted for 11 percent of visitors to Cyprus in 2023, while investment, merchandise trade, and business services connect the two economies.[5][7] Academic exchanges, medical cooperation, and innovation initiatives have extended these connections beyond government diplomacy.[8][9]

Cyprus’s membership in the European Union since 2004 increased Israel’s interest in developing the relationship with a friendly European partner.[4] Its proximity and transport infrastructure also give Cyprus a place in Israeli emergency planning, alongside the countries’ practical cooperation on firefighting, evacuation, and search and rescue.[4][2] Security cooperation has nevertheless developed without a formal military alliance.[4]

Contacts between Jewish communities and Cyprus predate the establishment of either country’s modern bilateral institutions: Jewish refugees expelled from Spain reached the island in the late fifteenth century, and efforts to establish Jewish agricultural communities followed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[1][7] Cyprus later became a detention and transit point for Jewish Holocaust survivors seeking to reach the land of Israel.[3][7]

Between 1946 and 1949, British authorities detained approximately 53,000 Jews in camps on Cyprus.[7] Greek Cypriots assisted the detainees, and some cooperated with Jewish underground representatives who secretly trained detainees before their onward journey to Mandatory Palestine.[3] This assistance contributed to favorable Jewish attitudes toward Greek Cypriot aspirations for independence; Prodromos Papavassiliou was among the Cypriots whose humanitarian work Israel subsequently remembered.[3][10]

Israel opened a consulate in Nicosia in 1950, reflecting the island’s importance to early immigration and commercial connections.[3] As Cypriot independence approached, Israel sought support for diplomatic relations from both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities.[3] Efforts by the United Arab Republic and Lebanon to prevent the establishment of relations after independence were unsuccessful.[3]

Cyprus became independent on August 16, 1960, and its ambassador to Israel later dated the beginning of diplomatic relations to the following day.[7] Relations were established at ambassadorial level, with a resident Israeli ambassador in Cyprus and a non-resident Cypriot ambassador to Israel.[1]

During the 1980s, active commercial and cultural ties coexisted with Cyprus’s generally neutral approach to the Arab–Israeli conflict.[11] The island sometimes hosted informal encounters between Arabs and Israelis, while Cyprus supported moderate Palestinian positions internationally and sought Arab backing for its own position on Cyprus.[11] Political relations began warming from the 1980s, alongside tourism, trade, and technical cooperation.[1]

Violence connected with the Arab–Israeli conflict also reached the island.[11] In 1985, gunmen linked to the Palestine Liberation Organization murdered three Israelis aboard their yacht in Larnaca harbor; an Israeli air raid on PLO headquarters in Tunisia followed six days later.[11] Attacks on PLO officials and an attempted bombing near the Israeli embassy occurred in 1988.[11]

Cyprus opened an embassy in Israel in 1994 under President Glafkos Clerides, with Alekos Michaelides serving as foreign minister.[12] Increased official exchanges, agreements, and visits accompanied the upgrading of relations during the 1990s.[10] Reciprocal presidential state visits took place in 2011, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Nicosia in February 2012—the first visit to Cyprus by a sitting Israeli prime minister.[10][13]

The marked improvement after 2010 coincided with worsening Israel–Turkey relations, eastern Mediterranean gas discoveries, and Cyprus’s established EU membership.[4] Senior-level exchanges included visits to Cyprus by Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, visits to Israel by Presidents Demetris Christofias and Nicos Anastasiades, and exchanges between energy ministers.[8] In September 2015, Anastasiades called Cyprus a “reliable, loyal, and unwavering partner” of Israel and linked the partnership to geography, democracy, and freedom.[14] He cited his June visit to Israel and Netanyahu’s July visit to Cyprus as demonstrations of their intention to deepen ties.[14]

The Israel–Greece–Cyprus trilateral framework was inaugurated in January 2016, following an initiative by Greece and Cyprus that Israel moved to develop.[2] Regular leaders’ summits and ministerial discussions subsequently addressed a wide range of civilian and security subjects, with Egypt and Jordan participating in some wider regional formats.[2] A March 3, 2016, cooperation agreement provided for regular annual meetings and discussions covering parliamentary affairs, energy, research, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, agriculture, migration, and emergency information-sharing.[15]

At the sixth trilateral summit in Jerusalem on March 20, 2019, the leaders discussed firefighting and a proposed EastMed pipeline linking Israeli gas to Europe through Cyprus and Greece.[16] Netanyahu presented the pipeline as an opportunity to strengthen participating economies, regional stability, and European supply diversification, while the Cypriot and Greek leaders emphasized energy security and protection of maritime activity.[16] A four-party declaration issued the following day committed the United States, Israel, Greece, and Cyprus to greater regional cooperation, energy security, and diversification.[17]

At the December 2021 summit, the three governments described their partnership as connecting Europe, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East.[18] They reaffirmed defense coordination, strategic dialogue, and defense-industrial cooperation, while also addressing pandemic response, environmental protection, water management, climate action, and emergency preparedness.[18] Their declaration supported a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem through the UN process, with the aim of reunifying the island.[18]

The foreign ministers of Cyprus, Greece, Israel, and the United States reaffirmed the 3+1 format at a virtual meeting on May 9, 2022.[6] They agreed to intensify work on energy, economic cooperation, climate action, emergency preparedness, and counterterrorism, and to prepare a roadmap of deliverables for the coming year.[6]

In December 2025, the trilateral partners committed to annual leaders’ summits and closer ministerial and working-level coordination.[19] Their declaration supported maritime-security cooperation, protection of sea lanes and critical infrastructure, and joint work on natural gas, electricity interconnection, renewable energy, science, and technology.[19] It again endorsed a settlement of the Cyprus problem based on relevant UN Security Council resolutions.[19]

President Isaac Herzog visited Cyprus in September 2026 and met President Nikos Christodoulides to discuss deeper bilateral cooperation.[20] Christodoulides identified tourism, trade, security, energy, and defense as areas for development; Herzog advocated continued regional dialogue and expressed hope for a future meeting also involving Lebanon’s president.[20] On October 14, 2026, Cyprus established a cross-party parliamentary caucus chaired by Chrysis Pantelides to strengthen parliamentary and civil-society connections with Israel.[8]

Israel and Cyprus signed their exclusive economic zone delimitation agreement in Nicosia on December 17, 2010, and it entered into force on February 25, 2011.[21] The treaty defines a median-line boundary and provides for cooperation when natural resources extend across the two zones.[21] It also establishes consultation over certain boundary endpoints and provides for diplomatic settlement of disputes, followed by arbitration if necessary.[21]

The agreement accompanied expanding offshore exploration and new gas discoveries.[22] A 2012 assessment estimated Cyprus’s Block 12 field at 7–8 trillion cubic feet and Israel’s nearby Leviathan field at 17 trillion cubic feet; these were contemporary estimates rather than current reserve figures.[23] Cyprus announced the Aphrodite discovery in 2011, and another significant discovery by ExxonMobil was announced in March 2019.[24]

Aphrodite lies mostly in Cypriot economic waters but extends into Israeli jurisdiction, creating a need for coordination over development, exports, and offshore security.[2] During Netanyahu’s February 2012 visit, the governments agreed to launch a joint natural-gas and oil exploration venture in adjoining waters.[13] An August 2013 memorandum among Israel, Cyprus, and Greece addressed electricity connectivity and protection of important Mediterranean infrastructure near gas fields.[25]

Export concepts have included routing gas to Egyptian liquefaction facilities and building a pipeline through Cyprus and Greece toward Italy.[2] The proposed EastMed pipeline was ambitious and costly, with uncertain feasibility.[2] In 2019, Cyprus, Israel, Greece, and Italy were advancing the pipeline concept while Cyprus and Egypt considered using Egyptian liquefied-natural-gas facilities for Cypriot and Israeli exports.[24]

At a four-party energy ministerial in Athens in 2019, the participants agreed to establish a high-level working group to identify projects and ways to advance them.[26] Their priorities included infrastructure, renewables, storage, environmental protection, cybersecurity, and emergency preparedness for offshore operations.[26] They supported an eastern Mediterranean energy corridor and noted that the EastMed intergovernmental agreement had been finalized in December 2018 and approved by the European Commission in February 2019, but still awaited signature.[26]

The United States withdrew its endorsement of EastMed in 2022, citing economic feasibility, environmental impact, and Turkish opposition; attention subsequently shifted toward an undersea electricity cable.[27] Following the December 2025 summit, another proposal envisaged linking Israel’s Leviathan, Tamar, and Karish-Tanin fields to liquefaction facilities planned for Cyprus, with export revenue intended to help attract private pipeline financing.[28]

Electricity connectivity has developed as a parallel initiative.[25] The EuroAsia Interconnector was inaugurated at an October 14, 2022, event as a proposed submarine connection among Israel, Cyprus, and Greece, exceeding 1,200 kilometers in length and designed for 2,000 megawatts.[29] Its first section was scheduled to connect Cyprus and Crete, and the EU earmarked €657 million for construction.[29] Subsequent discussions described the Great Sea Interconnector as a proposed grid connection intended to improve supply security and renewable-energy integration.[7]

In August 2026, French investor Meridiam joined the Great Sea Interconnector project, while cost and financing questions remained unresolved.[30] An earlier cost estimate stood at $2.2 billion, an existing arrangement could leave Cypriot consumers responsible for as much as 63 percent of construction costs, and EU commitments totaled €658 million.[31] Israel’s energy ministry described the project as being in a cost-benefit analysis phase for Israel and Cyprus, with cost-sharing talks to follow and an envisaged transmission date of 2034.[30]

Regional institutions supplement these infrastructure initiatives.[27] Egypt, Israel, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, and Jordan established the East Mediterranean Gas Forum in September 2020, with the Palestinian Authority also participating.[27] Cyprus was due to assume its presidency on January 1, 2022, under arrangements discussed at the 2021 summit.[18] A November 2025 3+1 energy statement supported interconnectivity, energy development, infrastructure protection, and cooperation through the Eastern Mediterranean Energy Center.[32] The East Med Energy Center was launched on June 11, 2026, as a platform for energy, technology, innovation, research, cybersecurity, and critical-infrastructure cooperation.[8]

In January 2012, Israel and Cyprus signed agreements on defense cooperation and the protection and exchange of classified information.[8] These provided a basis for further homeland-security and counterterrorism cooperation.[8] A search-and-rescue agreement signed on February 16, 2012, allowed Israeli military aircraft and ships to use Cypriot airspace and territorial waters for relevant activities.[33]

Security coordination serves practical purposes including protecting maritime commerce, ports, offshore installations, and shipping, while possible emergency access to airports and seaports offers strategic depth.[2] Cooperation has included joint exercises, information-sharing, cyber defense, search and rescue, and counterterrorism work, including the exposure of Hezbollah operatives in Cyprus.[2][34] A large-scale exercise involving infantry and air forces took place in Cyprus in May 2019.[2]

In December 2025, the Israel Defense Forces announced a trilateral military work plan with Greece and Cyprus, alongside separate bilateral plans for 2026.[35] These covered exercises, training, working groups, and strategic military dialogue, following an annual meeting in Nicosia involving an Israeli delegation led by Brigadier General Amit Adler.[35] On October 26, 2026, the defense ministries signed a €150 million agreement under which Israel Shipyards would supply Cyprus with a new offshore patrol vessel equipped with Rafael systems and upgrade the existing Cypriot vessel Ioannides.[36] The vessels were intended to expand patrol, surveillance, and search-and-rescue capacity.[36]

Reciprocal disaster assistance has been a particularly visible expression of the partnership.[2] Cyprus and Greece helped Israel fight the 2010 Carmel fire, and emergency cooperation was subsequently formalized and used during fires in 2016 and 2019.[2] After a 2011 munitions-bunker explosion disabled Cyprus’s main power station, Israel sent ten Israel Electric Corporation generators.[37] The explosion killed twelve firefighters and sailors, including the Cypriot fleet commander.[37]

Israeli firefighting aircraft assisted Cyprus during a coastal wildfire in June 2016.[8] In July 2021, Israel sent two firefighting planes and flame retardant, reciprocating Cypriot assistance to Israel in 2019.[8] Israel again dispatched Air Force aircraft during widespread Cypriot wildfires in July 2025, with Foreign Ministers Gideon Sa’ar and Constantinos Kombos maintaining close contact over the assistance.[8]

Joint rescue and evacuation exercises have accompanied proposals for a shared emergency operations room covering fires, earthquakes, and floods.[2] In September 2026, Israel’s National Emergency Management Authority chief met Cypriot defense, interior, civil-protection, and emergency officials to discuss a 2026–2027 work plan, professional coordination, and major-emergency response mechanisms.[38] The visit included the regional aerial firefighting station in Paphos as part of preparations for Israeli participation in regional wildfire-response coordination.[38]

Bilateral trade reached nearly €503 million in 2010, when Israel was Cyprus’s fifth-largest exporter.[10] A 2011 account recorded approximately €300 million in Israeli exports to Cyprus against imports worth a few million euros, alongside Israeli interest in Cypriot real estate.[37] By 2020, Israel was described as Cyprus’s fifth-largest trading partner, and services trade had grown by more than 30 percent between 2017 and 2018 to nearly $950 million.[39]

Trade in goods exceeded $1 billion in 2023.[7] Cyprus’s ambassador also identified Cyprus as Israel’s third-largest export destination for business services after the United States and United Kingdom, citing Israeli business-service exports of $1.657 billion in 2021.[7] In 2023, Israel ranked thirteenth among Cyprus’s export partners, receiving $82 million in goods, equivalent to 2.4 percent of Cypriot exports.[5] Cypriot exports included fish products, electronic equipment, and petroleum oils, while Israeli exports included chemicals, electrical goods, and mineral fuels.[5]

Israeli foreign-investment inflows into Cyprus reached €279 million in 2021, their highest level since the 2013 financial crisis.[5] Investment-promotion arrangements, a bilateral investment treaty, trade and entrepreneurship memoranda, and energy initiatives support economic relations, although double-taxation treaty negotiations remained ongoing in the 2026 study.[5] On August 3, 2020, Cyprus announced an agreement with a Cyprus–Israeli consortium for a $1.2 billion, or €1.0 billion, Larnaca marina and port privatization project and associated mixed-use development.[40]

A 2026 investment study drew partly on interviews with 27 Israeli investors, seven Jewish diaspora investors, and ten external informants.[5] Investors identified bureaucratic inefficiency, licensing delays, labor shortages, and market limitations as practical constraints.[5] Policy and facilitation gaps represented 38 percent of coded obstacle material, followed by business-environment challenges at 21 percent and market constraints at 18 percent.[5] Geopolitical considerations appeared in only two investment cases, despite some interviewees’ interest in the trilateral alignment; the research concerned the Republic of Cyprus and did not examine investment in northern Cyprus.[5]

Tourism grew from approximately 60,000 Israeli visitors annually around the beginning of the twenty-first century to 411,485 arrivals in 2023.[1][5] The 2023 figure made Israel Cyprus’s second-largest tourism market, representing 11 percent of all visitors, while Cypriot visits to Israel reached 14,000, exceeding pre-pandemic levels.[5] Before the war beginning in October 2023, more than 100 flights operated weekly between the countries.[7] Cyprus helped Israelis return through Larnaca after October 7, and flights between Cyprus and Ben-Gurion Airport continued during the war.[7]

Israeli companies participated in three of Cyprus’s four permanent desalination plants, according to Cyprus’s energy minister during the August 2013 trilateral memorandum signing.[25] The memorandum also addressed sewage treatment and wastewater reuse, connecting regional cooperation with practical water-management needs.[25]

In September 2013, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein and his Cypriot counterpart signed a parliamentary cooperation protocol.[8] That year, the University of Cyprus and Israel’s embassy agreed to establish a Jewish studies program at a local university.[8] An action plan between the Israel Innovation Authority and Cyprus’s Chief Scientist Office followed in January 2019, while nearly forty Cypriots had participated in startup and social-entrepreneurship seminars in Israel.[41]

IDC Herzliya launched the Pafos Innovation Institute in 2020 as a research-based regional cooperation center offering graduate degrees.[9] It was intended to bring together students and researchers from Israel, Cyprus, and neighboring countries to address water management, energy, data-driven management, entrepreneurship, and food security.[9]

Medical connections included Cypriot patients receiving treatment in Israeli hospitals, Cypriot doctors specializing at Sheba Medical Center, and research cooperation between Sheba and the University of Nicosia.[37] During 2020, the countries worked together on COVID-19 prevention, medical care, scientific capabilities, and mitigation of the pandemic’s economic effects.[42] Joint research and planned training also sought to connect their high-tech sectors.[42]

Hadassah Medical Center inaugurated a Limassol facility on October 15, 2026, bringing together Cypriot healthcare professionals and specialists from its Jerusalem teams.[8] Services included diagnostics, specialist care, rehabilitation, and prevention, alongside announced plans for a hospital near Nicosia.[8]

The partnership links Israel’s energy and technology capabilities with Cyprus’s European connections and eastern Mediterranean infrastructure.[4][9] Its practical significance is visible in reciprocal firefighting assistance, emergency transport, research collaboration, and sustained tourism as well as in high-level diplomacy.[2][7]

Cyprus also became involved in maritime humanitarian assistance to Gaza in coordination with Israel.[43] In March 2024, a vessel departing Larnaca delivered 200 tons of humanitarian supplies to northern Gaza in an operation involving World Central Kitchen and the United Arab Emirates.[43] The December 2025 trilateral declaration described the Amalthea corridor as coordinated between Cyprus and Israel with international partners and the UN 2720 mechanism, and committed the participants to coordinated channels for civilian assistance.[19]

In June 2024, Foreign Minister Kombos emphasized tourism, economic ties, and joint military exercises while expressing solidarity with Israel and hostages’ families and condemning Hamas’s October 7 attack.[44] He also highlighted Cyprus’s assistance to Israelis returning home from abroad.[44] These activities complemented the relationship’s institutional development through summits, technical committees, and emergency planning.[2][7]

Cyprus’s division remains an important regional constraint: the island was effectively divided following Turkey’s 1974 military intervention, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, declared in 1983, is recognized only by Turkey.[4] Turkey and Turkish Cypriots have opposed offshore exploration by the Republic of Cyprus, while Turkish naval operations have interfered with exploration activities.[24] The United States supported the Republic’s right to explore while maintaining that revenues should benefit both Cypriot communities.[24]

Cross-border resource allocation has also produced bilateral difficulties.[45] Aphrodite extends into the area Israel calls Ishai, and negotiations over Israel’s share and compensation continued for years.[45] January 2026 discussions envisaged expert review of geological data and development plans; August reporting anticipated arbitration and a possible development decision in summer 2027, rather than documenting a completed settlement.[45][31]

Political differences have persisted alongside cooperation.[2] Greece and Cyprus supported Israel in some EU discussions, including opposition to labeling products from Jewish communities in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria—but their influence within consensus-based EU decision-making remained limited.[2] The war after October 7 brought criticism of Israeli actions, tension over the Gaza maritime corridor, and Hezbollah and Turkish threats concerning possible Cypriot assistance to Israel during a wider escalation.[4]

Community security was a separate concern: approximately 5,000 Jewish people temporarily relocated to Cyprus because of the conflict in 2023, and police investigated an October 21 attack on Israeli and Jewish community members distributing hostage posters.[46] Police also maintained continuous protection outside the Israeli embassy in the weeks following the start of hostilities.[46] These developments concerned community safety and did not themselves establish a change in bilateral diplomatic policy.[46]