Been a while since I last had a run through books about this and no time at the moment to go remind myself about titles, but I can give some links to start digging.

Main export of Israel: https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/diamonds/repo...

Local presentation of mining sites: https://en.israelidiamond.co.il/wikidiamond/diamond-mining-m...

Some historical background and interesting sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_industry_in_Israel

As mentioned, reading up on Dan Gertler is a good idea too.

Sudan complaining recently about foreign involvement: https://sudantribune.com/article283888/

If you look into Omar al-Bashir's 'career' you'll likely find it enlightening about the degree of Gulf involvement in Sudan. The Gulf states are really, really good at PR, they can afford the biggest, most efficient firms to run it for them, but there are a lot of books about the colonial history in the region and how trade and economics have evolved over the last century.

The strategically importantly located island of Socotra has a really interesting history, lots of pirates and stuff. Since 2018 UAE is occupying it and lately Yemen news sources have claimed that Israel is in on it, and the US DoD has been asked whether they're there too. Starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_Emirates_takeover_...

Thanks for taking the time to reply, really interesting stuff.

UAE has basically annexed Socotra.

Dan Gertler