The war on Gaza is also an Israeli drive to seize Palestinian gas reserves
Palestinians in Gaza rally to demand their rights to gas from maritime fields in September 2022
Walid Abuhelal writes in Middle East Eye on 20 February 2024:
The terrifying scale of the destruction Israel’s war machine has wrought in Gaza indicates that the goal of this onslaught is not merely to destroy Hamas. Rather, we can infer that this aggression has been a long time coming, as Israel waited for an opportune time to unleash its full military force against the besieged Palestinian territory.
Some have argued that Israel’s goal is to push the population of Gaza into the Sinai, and the 7 October Hamas attack provided a pretext for this operation to begin in earnest. Zionism as an ideology is based on the displacement of landowners through intimidation and cutting off vital infrastructure, paving the way for Israeli settlers to move in.
But there is another, more important reason behind Israel’s current war: the promising natural gas wealth found in the Eastern Mediterranean, specifically off the coast of Gaza. The Levant gas field includes the shores of historic Palestine (Israel and Gaza), Syria, Lebanon and, on the opposite side, the island of Cyprus. This field is estimated to contain about 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
As for the Palestinian shores of Gaza, British Gas confirmed in 1999 that the reserves in Gaza Marine are estimated at 1.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That same year, the Palestinian Authority granted British Gas a 25-year contract to exploit the Gaza Marine natural gas field. Until now, after 25 years, the Palestinians have never benefited from it.
This is due to the obstacles that Israel placed under many pretexts, including for example the fear that the revenues will go to “finance terrorism” against Israel. Several Israeli governments from Ehud Barak to Benjamin Netanyahu have given approval to the Palestinians on several occasions to begin exploiting the Gaza Marine. However, every time Israel retracted its approval.
It is obvious Israel is keen not to give the Palestinians any sense of sovereignty over their land or territorial waters, which is further evidence of Israel’s premeditated intentions to displace the Palestinians from their historical lands and confiscate their natural resources.
In addition to Gaza’s natural gas, it is worth pointing out that Israel is stealing Palestinian natural gas from the Meged oil and gas field in the occupied West Bank under the pretext that the field is located to the west of the armistice line of 1948.
Expansionist policies
While Israel has never been serious about the so-called peace process or the Palestinian right to independence and self-determination, Netanyahu has taken an exceptionally hard line. The state’s longest-serving leader chose the path of “economic peace”, which entails slight improvements to the economic conditions of Palestinians living under occupation in order to quell resistance.
At the same time, he has focused on mega-projects tailored primarily to benefit Israelis, while potentially offering secondary benefits to the Arab population. In this regard, he has focused on two main areas: transforming Israel into a gateway and corridor linking East and West, and making the state a global centre for natural gas exports.