The Gaza Gasfields

are a subject little discussed in Western media but the potential billions of dollars worth of gas have been a contentious matter for many years. Despite belonging to the Palestinians by law they remain undeveloped due to disputes with Israel over allowing their development and under what circumstances. Last year prior to 10/7 there had been supposed "approval" to go ahead from Netanyahu but there was no actual written plan of any kind and the Israeli forces still retain control over the area which has also been claimed by the Israeli government in the past. Israel had said in the past they would allow the development to move forward only if the gas was first sent to Israeli facilities for them to handle any further sale/distribution and that gas must be supplied to them at below market rates. In exchange for the Palestinian gas they would receive a percentage of the profits in the form of goods and service provided and controlled by Israel. Sort of like the old company store system. Israel insisted that no money be allowed to flow directly to the Palestinians due to terror concerns.

I point out this ongoing matter because we don't hear anything about this in the ceasefire negotiations or discussions about what happens next for Gaza if a ceasefire took place and rebuilding began. Some of the previous proposals had the Palestinians receiving about 10% of the money the gas would generate. I would note that the cost of rebuilding would likely wipe that away easily if one were to assume that resource would be "bartered" for the money to rebuild. Eventually the question of who pays and how much has to be asked and answered.

So here is a map that shows the gas field area off Gaza and also a wiki link with more info on the subject. But first a note about this post. This is not about who did what to who when and this only happened because this one or that did this or that in 19** whenever. So save it. This is strictly for informational purposes about an economic aspect in the area that may or may not be impacting the current and future negotiations/situation. The purpose here is to give information to people, mainly here in the West, about an aspect of an economic factor they may not have known about. More information is always better. Once again this is not about "you could have had this but you did that" or "we can't have this because you did that".

So for example maybe discussion about the pros and cons of having a "regional consortium" of countries with experience in energy resource development, distribution and integrating the economic benefits into a country to assist the Palestinians in Gaza would be the kind of discussion that would be useful.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Marine