The unprecedented scale of destruction in the Gaza Strip and the continuation of Israel’s war on the Strip for more than 3 months put the Strip’s natural resources in the spotlight, amid international estimates that the occupation prevented the Palestinians from benefiting from their natural resources estimated at billions of dollars, and seeks, through its current destructive war, to displace the people of Gaza. Gaza strip.
This comes 10 years after British journalist Felicity Arbuthnot warned that Israel seeks to be a major exporter of natural gas and “some oil.”
Arbuthnot pointed out in her analysis, at the time, that governments and media considered the giant natural gas field of Leviathan, in the eastern Mediterranean, which was discovered in 2010, to be “off the coast of Israel,” in an implicit acknowledgment that it is Israeli, even though part of it is located in waters. Gaza strip.
“Israeli treasure”
Israel claims that these reserves off the Gaza Strip are “its own treasure,” but only a small part of this gas is located in the area that Arbuthnot said is Israeli, adding that there is still a lot of gas unexplored, but it is gradually being revealed.
For his part, Canadian economist Michel Chossodowski, founder and president of the Center for Globalization Research, who wrote with Felicity Arbuthnot last October, considered that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration of war last October on 2.3 million people in the Gaza Strip is… A continuation of the invasion of Gaza that began in 2008 as part of “Operation Cast Lead.”
Chossodowski adds that the primary goal of the operation is the explicit military occupation of Gaza by the Israeli army forces, the expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland, and the confiscation of Gaza’s marine natural gas reserves, which are estimated at billions of dollars, specifically those discovered by British Gas in 1999 off the Strip, as well as Levant Basin discoveries in 2013.
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) indicated at the beginning of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation that it launched against the occupation around the Gaza Strip. Among its goals was to thwart an Israeli plan to seize Gaza and the West Bank and expel the population to both Egypt and Jordan.
Secret conversations
Al-Monitor newspaper reported on October 6, 2022, that Egypt succeeded in convincing Israel to begin extracting natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip, after several months of secret bilateral talks.
According to the newspaper, the development came after years of Israeli objections to extracting natural gas off the coast of Gaza for “alleged” security reasons.
British Gas also deals with the Israeli government, and pointed out that the Palestinian government in Gaza was bypassed in the agreement regarding exploration and development rights in gas fields.
The field, located about 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of the Gaza coast, was discovered by British Gas in 2000 and is estimated to contain more than one trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The newspaper quoted an Egyptian official as saying at the time that “an Egyptian economic and security delegation discussed with the Israeli side the issue of allowing the extraction of natural gas off the coast of Gaza.”
The official explained to the newspaper that Israel had stipulated the start of practical procedures to extract gas from Gaza’s fields at the beginning of 2024, to ensure its security.
An international vision
According to a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) issued in 2019, geologists and economists in the field of natural resources confirmed that the occupied Palestinian territory is located above large reservoirs of oil and gas, in Area C of the occupied West Bank and the Mediterranean coast off the Gaza Strip. .
However, the occupation prevents Palestinians from developing their energy fields to exploit and benefit from them, and as such, the Palestinian people have been deprived of the benefits of using this natural resource to finance social and economic development and meet their energy needs.
The accumulated losses are estimated at billions of dollars, and the longer Israel prevents the Palestinians from exploiting their oil and gas reserves, the greater the opportunity costs, and the greater the total costs of the occupation borne by the Palestinians, according to the UN report.
The report specifies assessments of current and potential Palestinian oil and natural gas reserves that can be exploited for the benefit of the Palestinian people, and which Israel prevents them from exploiting, or exploits without taking into account international law.
Reserves swell
Returning to what Arbuthnot mentioned in 2013, Levitan was considered the most prominent field ever discovered in the Levant Basin, which covers about 83,000 square kilometers of the eastern Mediterranean.
In addition to the Tamar field, in the same location, discovered in 2009, prospects point to energy wealth controlled by Israel, Noble Energy, Avner Oil Exploration, and Ratio Oil Exploration.
The estimated reserves of the Leviathan field have already increased from an estimated 16.7 trillion cubic feet of gas to 19 trillion cubic feet.
According to Arbuthnot, “the average recoverable oil in the region is 1.7 billion barrels, and the average gas reserves are 122 trillion cubic feet, using a geology-based assessment methodology.”
Gaza resources
Writer Tara Allami said earlier, via the American “Mondoweiss” website, that the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip cannot be viewed in isolation from the rich resources represented by natural gas that abound on its shores. The attack deliberately destroyed buildings and infrastructure and killed thousands to push people to Migration so that Gaza is freed from occupation.
The writer says that the Israeli project aims to build an ethnic colonial state, and Israel seeks to achieve this goal by exporting “stolen gas” and concluding deals with neighboring countries with the participation of the European Union, as British Gas discovered gas fields off Gaza 25 years ago, and knows Today, it is called “Gaza Marine 1” and “Gaza Marine 2,” and it constitutes a point of interest for Israel and America in exploiting Palestinian resources.
Allami adds that the Israeli occupation controls the energy and water resources in Gaza, which hinders efforts to establish an independent energy infrastructure in the Strip, and the occupation benefits from “stolen gas” and water, while the Palestinians in Gaza suffer from a severe energy crisis.
Allami points to Israel’s interest in extracting gas off the coasts of Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt, and attributes this to the occupation’s goals that are strengthened by the Oslo Accords and the Paris Protocol, such as encouraging settlement expansion and restricting Palestinian access to resources.