Israeli Money Reshapes Cyprus: Property Buys, Gated Enclaves and Politics Stir Local Unease

This summer, on a road near Larnaca airport, holidaymakers arriving in Cyprus were greeted by a billboard in Hebrew: "Israelis, enjoy! Now come back and win!" It was an election poster for Israel's October 27 vote, featuring Gadi Eisenkot, the former army chief who leads the opposition Yashar Party. It is believed to be the first time a foreign politician has campaigned on billboards in Cyprus. TV presenter and pro-Palestine activist Melanie Steliou told Al Jazeera that Israel is only 40 minutes away by plane, so people can fly home, vote, and return the same day. Israel does not let most citizens abroad vote from overseas, so campaigns target those who can make the trip. To Steliou, the poster shows Israeli politicians treating Cyprus as "just another district of Israel."

Political influence is also reaching parliament. On October 20, six Cypriot lawmakers formed a pro-Israel caucus, launched by the advocacy group Israel Allies Foundation, according to The Jerusalem Post.

The numbers behind the presence are large. Israelis made nearly 600,000 trips to Cyprus last year, more than double the 2022 figure, according to the Cyprus Statistical Service. In August, almost one in four arriving tourists was Israeli, up 28.4 percent from 2025. In the 12 months to September 2025, Israelis made 850 property purchases in Larnaca district, more than any other foreign nationality, per Interior Ministry data. Israel's embassy in Nicosia estimates 15,000 to 20,000 Israelis consider the island home, Philenews reported in August, while the 2021 census counted slightly more than 1,000 living or registered there. Investment from Israel grew more than sixfold between 2017 and 2024, to 5.1 billion euros ($5.9bn), the Central Bank of Cyprus says, even as total foreign investment fell by a quarter between 2022 and 2024 and Russian holdings, largely money routed through Cypriot holding companies, shrank by more than a third.

Cyprus has absorbed foreign money before. Limassol was once nicknamed "Limassolgrad" for its Russian community. Historian Theodosis Pipis of the think tank KEDISA said Russian investment in the early 2010s brought big buildings but never a large wave of house-buying, school-building and community-making, nor foreign election campaigns. Israeli investment, he said, is creating "a sense of community for the future." Academic Nasia Hadjigeorgiou of the University of Central Lancashire in Cyprus said British and Lebanese buying came almost naturally, while the Israeli push was more sudden. She added that Nicosia keeps giving Israel's government cover and support while Israel does "unspeakable things" in Gaza, which makes part of the population uncomfortable.

That discomfort is personal for some. Steliou showed Al Jazeera videos: a diner at an Israeli-owned restaurant trying to attack protesters at a pro-Palestine march, and an Israeli man writing expletives on and spitting at a mural honouring Gaza's children. Such incidents, she said, happen often. Giorgos Kyrou, a 32-year-old artist from Limassol, said his heart sinks seeing large groups of Israeli men who have served in the military and then buy property. Potter Ioannis Nestoras blamed Cypriot politicians, saying they are compromised and embrace the Israeli government in a way he does not think reflects the Cypriot mentality.

Much of the concern centres on so-called gated communities, a term used by politicians, estate agents, academics and residents for clusters of Israeli-owned property seen as closed off. No official count exists, and owners' nationalities are not recorded when purchases go through Cypriot companies. Stockwatch reported that Israeli companies bought most of the coastline between Livadia and Pyla near Larnaca for homes and hotels, and that Israeli investors are promoting the island's largest organised residential development at Dromolaxia-Meneou, with its own kindergarten, pools and private park. Kyrou said locals sometimes feel pushed out of villages and urban centres. Hadjigeorgiou thought some examples were exaggerated but said some are clearly gated, and that a development only Israelis can buy would be unconstitutional.

Infrastructure is following. In Polemidia, near Limassol, the Yael Foundation is funding a "flagship Jewish school" for up to 1,500 pupils, due to open in 2027; project leader Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler has called it a "Zionist school." Kathimerini reported that in February 2025 the Education Ministry said no application had been submitted, and that in October the Finance Ministry said it was still being finalised. The municipality said it was not consulted, and had itself been refused permission for a sport centre on the same plot. Hadassah opened its first European medical centre in Limassol in July. In western Cyprus, businessman Uriel Kertesz, a Hungarian-Israeli citizen, bought an estimated 70 to 80 percent of the abandoned village of Trozena and its farmland in a protected area. Politis journalist Yiannis Pazouros said he paid double or triple market value and proceeded without needed permits; Al Jazeera could not confirm this. Kertesz has not disclosed his plans.

Politics has sharpened the argument. AKEL leader Stefanos Stefanou said in June 2025 that areas were being bought en masse, creating communities almost inaccessible to non-Israelis, and denied xenophobia or anti-Semitism. Former Israeli ambassador Oren Anolik said he was singling out the Jewish community. In August 2025, after Israeli minister Amichai Chikli complained, the Interior Ministry ordered municipalities to remove what it called hate-inciting graffiti; Nestoras said Limassol crews acted, sometimes before 6am, after the mayor's attempt to protect it was overruled. The ministry did not respond to questions. Hadjigeorgiou noted that Cypriots, displaced in 1974, see a painful echo in what is happening in the areas the Republic controls.