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Russia, Iran Vie for Syrian Oil ‘Leftovers’

A US military vehicle, part of a convoy arriving from northern Iraq, drives past an oil pump jack in the countryside of Syria's northeastern city of Qamishli on Oct. 26, 2019. (Getty Images)
A US military vehicle, part of a convoy arriving from northern Iraq, drives past an oil pump jack in the countryside of Syria's northeastern city of Qamishli on Oct. 26, 2019. (Getty Images)
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Russia, Iran Vie for Syrian Oil ‘Leftovers’

A US military vehicle, part of a convoy arriving from northern Iraq, drives past an oil pump jack in the countryside of Syria's northeastern city of Qamishli on Oct. 26, 2019. (Getty Images)
A US military vehicle, part of a convoy arriving from northern Iraq, drives past an oil pump jack in the countryside of Syria's northeastern city of Qamishli on Oct. 26, 2019. (Getty Images)

The behind-the-scenes scrap between Russia and Iran over oil wealth in northeastern Syrian regions, which are not held by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has intensified.

Before the eruption of the crisis in 2011, Syria used to produce around 360,000 barrels of oil per day. It now stands at 80,000 bpd.

On Thursday, Minister of Oil and Mineral Resources Bassam Tohme revealed that direct and indirect losses in the sector have exceeded 92 billion dollars. He added that more than 90 percent of the country’s oil reserves are controlled by the United States and their SDF allies in regions east of the Euphrates River. These regions also boast Syria’s most important gas factories and the majority of its agricultural and water wealth.

Qamishli allies
Oil produced in areas east of the Euphrates is either locally used or sent through warlords to the Homs or Baniyas refineries in government-held regions. They are then either returned to the Kurdish-controlled region or used in regime regions.

Some of the oil is also smuggled to Iraqi Kurdistan and later Turkey to provide financial revenues to prop up the autonomous Kurdish administration east of the Euphrates. Observers believes these operations provide some 400 million dollars annually that go to supporting the administration and its 100,000 SDF fighters and policemen.

Western sanctions have targeted mediators between Damascus and Qamishli, as well as Syria’s entire oil sector.

The autonomous administration and American companies have, meanwhile, discussed oil investments. In April 2020, the US Treasury Department granted a rare license allowing little known Delta Crescent Energy to operate in the country.

The company, incorporated in Delaware in 2019, was founded by former Delta Force officer James Reese, former US Ambassador to Denmark James Cain, and John P. Dorrier Jr., a former executive at GulfSands Petroleum, a UK-based oil company that had previously worked in northeastern Syria.

In July, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said that SDF General Commander Mazloum Abdi informed him that a deal had been signed with an American company to “modernize the oil fields in northeastern Syria”.

The deal was slammed by Damascus, Moscow, Tehran and Ankara. Tohme said the agreement sought to “steal” the Syrian people’s resources.

Former US President Donald Trump said that he was keeping American forces in Syria to protect oil wells and prevent ISIS from capturing them.

Damascus’ allies
Damascus has sought to cut its losses by obtaining oil derivatives from Iran. These naval shipments have, however, been intercepted by the US and Israel. The latest such obstruction took place on Wednesday when a vessel loaded with derivates was barred from reaching Syrian ports.

As Syria is in the grips of a stifling economic crisis and western sanctions, Russia and Iran’s attention has shifted towards investing in oil and gas fields that remain under Damascus’ control. Syria also boasts phosphates reserves.

In 2017, Damascus and Tehran signed four strategic deals for the Iran Revolutionary Guards to run a third mobile phone operator, invest in phosphates for the next 99 years, seize agricultural and industrial lands and set up an oil port on the Mediterranean.

In September 2020, Russia and Syria held a series of meetings aimed at bolstering economic relations. They also upped their military cooperation and deployment at the Latakia and Tartus bases. Soon after Russia’s military intervention in Syria in 2015, it signed an agreement with Damascus that would allow Wagner mercenaries to protect and liberate oil and gas installations from ISIS. In return, it would receive 25 percent of their revenues.

Estimates from 2018 said that some 2,500 Wagner operatives and some 20,000 to 25,000 Iran-backed militants were present in Syria.

With the fighting dying down in March 2020, the race between Russia and Iran to claim Syrian sovereign rights intensified. Iranian militants, as well as the Lebanese Hezbollah and Fatemiyoun fighters from Iraq, have seized the oil and gas fields in the Deir Ezzor and Raqqa countrysides. Pro-Russia forces have, however, sought to expel them.

Russia has sought to obtain oil investment contracts in the Mediterranean. Damascus approved an agreement granting a Russian firm exclusive rights to drill for oil in Syria’s offshore bloc in its exclusive economic zone off that stretches from off the coast of Tartus to the border with Lebanon. The deal lasts 29 years.

Iran still controls the Alboukamal oil wells, which it captured in 2017. It also controls phosphate mines in the Palmyra countryside in spite of repeated attempts by Moscow to seize them.

American officials believe that Russia and Iran’s race for Syria’s resources will grant them a crucial negotiations card when it comes to the war-torn country’s future.

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To Get Their Own Cash, People in Gaza Must Pay Middlemen a 40% Cut

A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
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To Get Their Own Cash, People in Gaza Must Pay Middlemen a 40% Cut

A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)

Cash is the lifeblood of the Gaza Strip’s shattered economy, and like all other necessities in this war-torn territory — food, fuel, medicine — it is in extremely short supply.

With nearly every bank branch and ATM inoperable, people have become reliant on an unrestrained network of powerful cash brokers to get money for daily expenses and commissions on those transactions have soared to about 40%.

"The people are crying blood because of this," said Ayman al-Dahdouh, a school director living in Gaza City. "It’s suffocating us, starving us."

At a time of surging inflation, high unemployment and dwindling savings, the scarcity of cash has magnified the financial squeeze on families — some of whom have begun to sell their possessions to buy essential goods.

The cash that is available has even lost some of its luster. Palestinians use the Israeli currency, the shekel, for most transactions. Yet with Israel no longer resupplying the territory with newly printed bank notes, merchants are increasingly reluctant to accept frayed bills.

Gaza’s punishing cash crunch has several root causes, experts say.

To curtail Hamas’ ability to purchase weapons and pay its fighters, Israel stopped allowing cash to enter Gaza at the start of the war. Around the same time, many wealthy families in Gaza withdrew their money from banks and then fled the territory. And rising fears about Gaza’s financial system prompted foreign businesses selling goods into the territory to demand cash payments.

As Gaza’s money supply dwindled and civilians’ desperation mounted, cash brokers' commissions — around 5% at the start of the war — skyrocketed.

Someone needing cash transfers money electronically to a broker and moments later is handed a fraction of that amount in bills. Many brokers openly advertise their services, while others are more secretive. Some grocers and retailers have also begun exchanging cash for their customers.

"If I need $60, I need to transfer $100," said Mohammed Basheer al-Farra, who lives in southern Gaza after being displaced from Khan Younis. "This is the only way we can buy essentials, like flour and sugar. We lose nearly half of our money just to be able to spend it."

In 2024, inflation in Gaza surged by 230%, according to the World Bank. It dropped slightly during the ceasefire that began in January, only to shoot up again after Israel backed out of the truce in March.

Cash touches every aspect of life in Gaza

About 80% of people in Gaza were unemployed at the end of 2024, according to the World Bank, and the figure is likely higher now. Those with jobs are mostly paid by direct deposits into their bank accounts.

But "when you want to buy vegetables, food, water, medication -- if you want to take transportation, or you need a blanket, or anything — you must use cash," al-Dahdouh said.

Shahid Ajjour’s family has been living off of savings for two years after the pharmacy and another business they owned were ruined by the war.

"We had to sell everything just to get cash," said Ajjour, who sold her gold to buy flour and canned beans. The family of eight spends the equivalent of $12 every two days on flour; before the war, that cost less than $4.

Sugar is very expensive, costing the equivalent of $80-$100 per kilogram (2.2 pounds), multiple people said; before the war, that cost less than $2.

Gasoline is about $25 a liter, or roughly $95 a gallon, when paying the lower, cash price.

Bills are worn and unusable

The bills in Gaza are tattered after 21 months of war.

Money is so fragile, it feels as if it is going to melt in your hands, said Mohammed al-Awini, who lives in a tent camp in southern Gaza.

Small business owners said they were under pressure to ask customers for undamaged cash because their suppliers demand pristine bills from them.

Thaeir Suhwayl, a flour merchant in Deir al-Balah, said his suppliers recently demanded he pay them only with brand new 200-shekel ($60) bank notes, which he said are rare. Most civilians pay him with 20-shekel ($6) notes that are often in poor condition.

On a recent visit to the market, Ajjour transferred the shekel equivalent of around $100 to a cash broker and received around $50 in return. But when she tried to buy some household supplies from a merchant, she was turned away because the bills weren’t in good condition.

"So the worth of your $50 is zero in the end," she said.

This problem has given rise to a new business in Gaza: money repair. It costs between 3 and 10 shekels ($1-$3) to mend old bank notes. But even cash repaired with tape or other means is sometimes rejected.

People are at the mercy of cash brokers

After most of the banks closed in the early days of the war, those with large reserves of cash suddenly had immense power.

"People are at their mercy," said Mahmoud Aqel, who has been displaced from his home in southern Gaza. "No one can stop them."

The war makes it impossible to regulate market prices and exchange rates, said Dalia Alazzeh, an expert in finance and accounting at the University of the West of Scotland. "Nobody can physically monitor what’s happening," Alazzeh said.

A year ago, the Palestine Monetary Authority, the equivalent of a central bank for Gaza and the West Bank, sought to ease the crisis by introducing a digital payment system known as Iburaq. It attracted half a million users, or a quarter of the population, according to the World Bank, but was ultimately undermined by merchants insisting on cash.

Israel sought to ramp up financial pressure on Hamas earlier this year by tightening the distribution of humanitarian aid, which it said was routinely siphoned off by militants and then resold.

Experts said it is unclear if the cash brokers’ activities benefit Hamas, as some Israeli analysts claim.

The war has made it more difficult to determine who is behind all sorts of economic activity in the territory, said Omar Shabaan, director of Palthink for Strategic Studies, a Gaza-based think tank.

"It's a dark place now. You don't know who is bringing cigarettes into Gaza," he said, giving just one example. "It's like a mafia."

These same deep-pocketed traders are likely the ones running cash brokerages, and selling basic foodstuffs, he said. "They benefit by imposing these commissions," he said.

Once families run out of cash, they are forced to turn to humanitarian aid.

Al-Farra said that is what prompted him to begin seeking food at an aid distribution center, where it is common for Palestinians to jostle over one other for sacks of flour and boxes of pasta.

"This is the only way I can feed my family," he said.