Why energy is Israel’s weak spot

The darkness that fell over Israel earlier this year underlined the vulnerability of the country’s energy system.
For hours at a time, neighborhoods in Tel Aviv, nearby Petah Tikva and the southern city of Beersheba were left without electricity while trains ground to a halt and the government drew up lists of essential equipment needed in case of prolonged power outages. 
The disruption was blamed on a series of faults ― despite an international hacking group attempting to take credit ― but whatever the cause, it underscored a fragility that has kept the country’s national security chiefs awake at night for decades.
Now, former Deputy National Security Advisor Chuck Freilich told POLITICO that escalating tensions on the border with Lebanon could take a toll on the power grid. Israeli forces this week struck at the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in the south of the country, hitting over 270 targets.
“If Hezbollah decides they’re going to attack power plants and other sites, it’s a big problem,” he said. “They have precise missiles that can target civilian infrastructure, and it’s hard to run a modern country without electricity and without computers.”
With few natural resources of its own, Israel has long worried about energy. The lion’s share of its power plants are gas-fired; one of Israel’s main success stories in recent years has been weaning itself off foreign imports after the discovery of around 1,000 billion cubic meters of natural gas off its coastline — equivalent to around 70 years of its current consumption.
According to Elai Rettig, an assistant professor of energy geopolitics at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, that gas is also a diplomatic tool in the fight against efforts to isolate Israel, with neighboring countries buying huge volumes.
“For Jordan and Egypt, it would be impossible to boycott Israel at this point because Israel is what is keeping the lights on in Amman and Cairo, and some would say that’s de-escalated their response and limited how much they can critique Israel,” he said. “Egypt already has three or four blackouts a day, and about 70 percent of Jordan’s energy is produced with Israeli gas.”
The escalating conflict with Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon now threatens that regional status quo. The Tamar field — one of the three main natural gas reserves — has already been temporarily shut down over safety concerns given its proximity to Gaza, and the larger Leviathan site is close to the northern border and could become a target for rocket attacks.
“One of the reasons Israel has tried to avoid a two-front war, going against Hezbollah and Hamas at the same time, is because it can’t afford to have both Tamar and Leviathan shut down at the same time,” he said. “It doesn’t have an alternative to the gas. But if you hit those fields, you’re hurting your friends, not just your enemies — so this cooperation is also something of a source of deterrence.”
Access to crude oil, gasoline and diesel has long been a major headache for Israeli policymakers, and Arab-led embargoes following regional wars in 1967 and 1973 sparked crippling energy crises. In response, Israeli security services began a secret program of trading weapons for oil from African dictatorships.
While Israel’s exact oil import statistics are a national secret, Azerbaijan has now emerged as its leading partner, having sold Israel $300 million worth of crude this past January alone, while receiving huge volumes of weaponry to use in its conflict with neighboring Armenia.
“Israel valued Azerbaijan as a crucial ally within the Muslim-majority world, offering not only strategic depth but also essential energy security,” said Ayaz Rzayev, a research fellow at Baku’s Topchubashov Center. “For Azerbaijan, the relationship with Israel provided access to cutting-edge military technology, helping maintain a significant technological edge in the region.”
However, even that relationship is becoming more uncertain as the war in Gaza escalates, Rzayev said, given that “Azerbaijan also places significant importance on its solidarity with Muslim states.” Turkey, Azerbaijan’s closest ally, has become a leading champion of the Palestinian cause since the conflict exploded, with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan imposing an unprecedented trade embargo on Israel.
“The big question is what do the Turks do,” said Freilich, the former national security official. “Most of Israel’s oil comes via pipelines to Turkey, and if they wanted they could cut off the spigot.”
Already balancing the threat of direct attacks on its infrastructure and growing pressure on its partners, Israel is also increasingly seeing its supply lines targeted — most notably by the Iran-backed Houthi militias in the Red Sea.
The Houthis have been harassing shipping since last year, despite the deployment of a Western naval coalition, sending prices for goods and fuel rising.
While the knock-on effects have so far been limited, “the regional gas market is more exposed” and could make bringing in gas via sea costlier and more complex, said Dan Marks, energy security expert at the Royal United Services Institute.
“As the global LNG market has been tight since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is likely to remain so until 2025, this could have price implications,” he said. “Egypt’s positioning as a regional gas hub and domestic political pressure around energy prices, combined with the impact on Suez Canal revenues, mean it has a number of reasons to remain engaged with Israel and to push for a ceasefire.”
At the same time, a more direct conflict with Iran is looming after Tehran vowed revenge against Israel for an attack in the capital that killed Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of Palestinian militant group Hamas. Washington would look to clamp down on Iran’s sanctions-circumventing oil sales, potentially squeezing supplies reaching the global market, a U.S. State Department spokesperson told POLITICO earlier this month. 
For Israel, though, the prospect of power disruptions as the standoff stretches toward the October anniversary of the conflict could demoralize the population, experts said.
“Israelis are not used to blackouts,” said Rettig, the Bar-Ilan professor. “We have about three hours of blackouts a year on average usually so just the thought of having two days without power causes Israelis to panic and go and buy generators.”
While that caused consternation in places like Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva and Beersheba earlier this year, it’s a dilemma that Gazans are already used to — 10 months of bombing has taken its toll on civilian infrastructure, and power is heavily rationed where it is available at all. The U.N. has called on Israel to stop blocking supplies of fuel for generators, which power everything from hospitals to bakeries.
But with negotiations failing to yield agreement on either side, hopes for peace appear dim.