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Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has already been going on for more than a month and the Hebrew army has no intention of ceasing hostilities “until all missions are accomplished: destroying Hamas and returning the hostages kidnapped by its military wing last year.” October 7th. Tel Aviv is actively promoting its narrative that the very Hamas attack motivates and justifies the deadly Israeli military operations in the Palestinian territories, which have killed more than 11,400 Palestinians, including more than 4,700 children, 3,155 women and 668 elderly people.
However, Israel could also pursue other goals. In 2019, a study by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) found that “geologists and resource economists have confirmed that the occupied Palestinian territory (TPO) is located on important oil and gas reservesin Area C of the West Bank and the Mediterranean coast opposite the Gaza Strip.” “To date, the real and opportunistic costs of the occupation in oil and natural gas alone have amounted to tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars,” to the detriment of the Palestinian people, it says it in the report.
Fight for “a gift from God” for the Palestinian people
In 1999, the Palestinian authorities signed a Agreement with the British oil company British Gas (BG) and received an operating license for the area. The exploratory well was sunk in September 2000 Gaza Marine-1st (GM-1) at a depth of 603 meters in the sea, 36 kilometers west of Gaza City, and then, about 5 km southwest of GM-1, the well was drilled Gaza Navy-2nd (GM-2).
The approximate value of these gas reserves was then estimated between 2 billion and 6 billion dollarsThe New York Times quoted the Palestinian authorities as saying. In this area, natural gas reserves may be up to 1.4 trillion cubic feet (more than 39.6 billion cubic meters), in addition to at least 1.5 billion barrels of oil.
The drilling operation to exploit a gas field that was discovered on September 27, 2000 in the Mediterranean off the Gaza Strip.
This discovery meant an economic boost for both the Palestinians and their foreign partners. Then-Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat stated that it was “A gift from God“for his people, while BG’s Palestinian and Israeli concessions manager Hugh Miller then stated:”There will be gas for export“. “It is clear from my conversations with Palestinian officials, including President Arafat, that they have no interest in simply sitting on excess gasoline.”
There has always been resistance in Israel that denied Palestinians the right to exploit their natural resources. An Israeli gas exploration consortium even filed a lawsuit in Hebrew courts to block drilling in Gaza on the grounds that the Palestinian Authority lacked the legal capacity to issue permits for energy exploration. But after the Palestinian movement Hamas – considered a terrorist group by Israel – came to power in the Gaza Strip following parliamentary elections in 2007, Israel moved from legal to offensive measures. With US support, Tel Aviv launched Operation Cast Lead in the Palestinian enclave in 2008, killing more than 1,400 Palestinians and seizing gas fields in Palestinian territorial waters.
In 2010, off Israel’s Mediterranean coast, the Leviathan sea gas field, which has estimated gas reserves of 470,000 million cubic meters and 1,700 million barrels of recoverable oil. These figures, estimated at $453 billion and $71 billion respectively according to 2017 prices, include Gaza’s natural wealth. Since then, “to the Palestinian people is denied the right to exploit oil and gas reserves and therefore Billions of dollars in revenue withdrawn“.
Israel, “Actor global key “Energy market”
Meanwhile, Tel Aviv has shown its ambitions to become a new energy center. The then Israeli Energy Minister Karine Elharrar signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in June 2022 that makes this possible Israeli natural gas exports to the EU. The minister stated:
“This is a historic moment in which the small country of Israel becomes a major player in the global energy market. The MoU will allow Israel to export Israeli natural gas to Europe for the first time. And it is even more impressive when you look at the important agreements we signed last year that position Israel and the Israeli energy and water sector as a major global player.”
The signing of this document came at a time when Russian oil and gas and Iranian oil were under Western sanctions, while Syrian oil fields were and are being illegally occupied by US forces. In addition, the key Syrian port of Latakia was bombed by Israel and the Lebanese port of Beirut, the gateway to the Middle East, was left in ruins after a series of powerful explosions.
And it is at this moment that “the little land of Israel” appears on the scene, with its gas reserves, its functioning ports and the answer to Europe’s problems and, perhaps most importantly, the blessing of the United States. So, in November 2023, the US Congress reaffirmed, within the framework of energy cooperation between Washington and Tel Aviv, that “it considers that the development of Energy sources covers services the highest national security interests of the United States“.
A new canal through Palestine
The US had previously discussed how it would support Israel, sometimes referred to as its “51st Israel”. “State” can turn into a window to Europe. So, according to a declassified memo, in the 1960s the United States considered a proposal to drop 520 atomic bombs on parts of Israel to build a 260-kilometer-long canal that would begin in the Red Sea, in the city port of Ayla, and would cross the Negev Desert and flow into the Mediterranean directly next to the northern Gaza Strip. The same northern Gaza Strip that is currently being bombed and depopulated by the Israeli army.
“Another interesting application of nuclear excavation would be a 160-mile (nearly 258-kilometer) sea-level canal through Israel, connecting the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Aqaba (and therefore the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean). ). “A canal of this type would be a strategically valuable alternative to the current Suez Canal,” the document says.
And the Suez Canal is a “gold mine” as it is the shortest sea route between Asia and Europe, connecting the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea. Every day, 2.8 million barrels of oil, 8% of the world’s energy, 50 ships, $9 billion worth of cargo and 12% of global trade pass through this single canal.
When a container ship ran aground in the Suez Canal in 2021, blocking transit in both directions, economists quickly began discussing what impact it could have on the global supply chain and oil and gas prices. The alternative route through the Cape of Good Hope adds approximately 9 days and 7,000 kilometers to the journey. There is currently no replacement for the Suez Canal, except perhaps the Ben-Gurion Canal, whose construction the United States and Israel have been discussing for more than 50 years. If this canal were built, Egypt and its profitable Suez Canal would lose a significant portion of its revenue.
Business in wartime
In recent weeks, following the start of the latest escalation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Tel Aviv has issued twelve new licenses to six companies in order to waste no time and exploit more of Gaza’s natural marine resources. In this context, Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz stated:
“The winning companies have committed to making unprecedented investments in natural gas exploration over the next three years, which is expected to lead to the discovery of new natural gas fields.”
This area is a strategic gold mine. The Israelis have their largest naval base in the Red Sea basin, right next to Eritrea. A little further south, the Chinese base is in the small African country of Djibouti, which could be the key piece of Beijing’s huge global infrastructure project “Belt and Road” that would help build a multipolar world and therefore play an important role in threatening the West’s hegemonic interests and his followers.
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