At the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran, reports emerged that Jordan and Egypt have cut off gas supplies to Syria. These reports appeared as minor details amid the shock of the latest episode of US-Israeli aggression in the Middle East – part of an ongoing effort to reshape the region.Yet such seemingly inconsequential reports conceal the longer-term, nonmilitary processes through which that reshaping is materially enacted. What was made clear by this news was that Israel has a growing energy control over the region – one that could help propel its colonialist agenda.Where does the gas come from?In January, Egypt began supplying 2.8 million cubic metres (98.9 million cubic feet) of gas per day to Syria through the Arab Gas Pipeline, which runs from Egypt’s El Arish through Taba to Jordan’s Aqaba and then north to Amman, then Syria’s Damascus and Homs and from there to Lebanon’s Tripoli. A memorandum of understanding was also signed with Lebanon for the import of gas from Egypt, but according to reports, the gas has not yet started flowing due to technical challenges.Also in January, Jordan’s state-owned National Electric Power Company signed a deal with the Syrian Petroleum Company for the supply of 4 million cubic metres (141.2 million cubic feet) of gas daily.From the moment news of the agreements surfaced, a central question emerged: where would Egypt and Jordan obtain gas for export?Egypt is a gas producer, but its local production has declined over the past years, hitting a six-year low of 49.3 billion cubic metres (1.7 trillion cubic feet) in 2024. The same year, its imports reached a record high of 14.6bcm (515.6 billion cubic feet), of which …
