Cypriots Criticize Israeli Investment in Hotels, Healthcare and Schools as “Aggressive and Exclusionary”
October 26, 2026
Israeli tourism in Cyprus is booming. Al Jazeera reports nearly 600,000 trips by Israelis last year, and investment is growing in hotels, healthcare, schools and other industries. Even Israeli politics has found its way onto the island.
Many Cypriots say they feel the strain. In Al Jazeera’s report, they describe an influx that threatens local businesses and pushes communities out of their own neighborhoods, and they call some of the investment “aggressive and exclusionary.”
It isn’t happening in a vacuum. Netanyahu’s government has been working to turn Cyprus and Greece into its regional partners, and Netanyahu’s own “hexagon of alliances” strategy has put the eastern Mediterranean at its center. A state accused of war crimes and genocide in Gaza, which it denies, is now building influence on a European island that has lived under division and occupation for fifty years.
So Cypriots have every reason to ask hard questions. Who is investing, and what do they want in return? Who decides which neighborhoods, schools and clinics get the money? And who’s left outside when the doors only open one way?
An island that knows what it’s like to have its future decided by outside powers isn’t being paranoid. It’s paying attention.
Source: @aljazeeraenglish
#Cyprus #Israel #Investment #Tourism #Nicosia
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