Israel’s plans to explore for gas off the coast of Gaza have drawn condemnation from rights groups and environmental advocates.

Since 2024, Israel has granted exploration licences for natural gas in areas considered part of Palestine’s maritime boundary off Gaza’s shores.

In February, energy minister Eli Cohen approved Israel’s fifth offshore gas licensing round in the Mediterranean.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, the plan would allow energy companies to explore around 8,600 square kilometres of sea, divided into six search zones.

Adalah, a Haifa-based legal centre focused on Palestinian rights, said two of the six zones fall within recognised Palestinian maritime territory off Gaza. The group said Israel’s previous offshore licensing round had also encroached on Palestinian waters.

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In a letter sent last month to Cohen and Israel’s attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, Adalah argued the new licensing round was illegal because around 1,000 square kilometres of the designated area lie in waters claimed by the State of Palestine. The group urged the government to halt the exploration plans.

The letter, shared with Middle East Eye, said Israel “has no authority to operate” in Palestinian maritime areas, adding that exploration there would breach both Israeli and international law.

Adalah said Israel could not use “its ongoing illegal occupation as justification for denying the sovereign rights of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian people”.

It also argued that the offshore drilling plans violate the Oslo Accords signed with the Palestinian Authority in 1993.

The group added that allowing further exploration in Palestinian waters would breach international humanitarian law, which prohibits occupying powers from exploiting natural resources under occupation.

Suhad Bishara, Adalah’s legal director, said the offshore drilling plans “cannot be separated from the broader accelerated Israeli policy aimed at establishing annexation and control over Palestinian land and resources”.

In a public statement, Bishara said the plan was not merely a violation of international law, “but an attempt to establish permanent control over Palestinian land and resources” in a way that undermines the Palestinian right to self-determination.

The energy ministry has not released the results of the licensing round since the tender was announced.

Middle East Eye contacted the ministry for comment but had not received a response by the time of publication.

According to Adalah, Israel’s gas industry has long been tied to wider violations of Palestinian rights.

Since the early 2000s, Israel has prevented the Palestinian Authority from accessing gas reserves in the Gaza Marine field, which experts estimate contains up to 30 billion cubic metres of gas. The field could generate up to $4bn for the Palestinian Authority, according to estimates.

Adalah also said Israel exports billions of dollars worth of gas to Egypt through the Ashkelon-Arish pipeline, which passes through Palestinian maritime territory without Palestinian consent.

‘Maximising profits’

Yuval Arbel of the Zalul Environmental Association, an Israeli group focused on protecting seas, streams and water resources, said Israel already has enough gas to meet its energy needs.

"There is no need to increase gas production. Instead, there should be a transition to renewable energy," Arbel told MEE.

He warned that offshore drilling poses serious risks to marine ecosystems and contributes to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions.

Arbel said the energy ministry operates on the assumption that renewable energy alone will not meet Israel’s future energy demands, but added that the ministry is also motivated by profit.

“If gas is extracted from these sites, it will only happen in another six to 10 years,” he said.

“Who knows whether there will still be demand for gas in 10 or 15 years.

“There is no real benefit for Israel in extracting more gas other than the revenues flowing into the state through exports,” he added, accusing the ministry of seeking to “maximise profits”.

In 2024, the energy ministry reported “record revenues” from gas production, with the state receiving 2.3bn shekels ($640m) in royalties – an increase of more than eight percent compared with the previous year.

Israel currently operates several offshore gas fields run by international and local energy companies, generating billions of shekels in revenue since the sector was privatised in 2015.

Among the international firms operating Israeli gas rigs are UK-based Energean and US energy giant Chevron. Last year, BP and Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR won bids in Israel’s fourth offshore gas licensing round, which critics say violates Palestinian sovereignty.

"The potential damage from gas drilling is so great that even if the likelihood of a catastrophic event is relatively small, it is not worth taking the risk," Arbel said.

Fuelling settlements

Since 2015, gas has become Israel’s main fuel for electricity production, overtaking coal, renewables and other energy sources.

According to a Knesset report, gas accounted for more than 49 percent of Israel’s electricity production in 2014. A decade later, that figure had risen to more than 70 percent, while coal and renewable energy each accounted for around 14 percent.

Since taking office in 2024, Cohen has pushed policies aimed at consolidating Israeli control over the occupied Palestinian territory, in line with demands from the settler movement.

Last week, he announced plans to expand natural gas infrastructure in the occupied West Bank.

“We are applying sovereignty in practice,” he said.

The project would enable gas supplies from the Mediterranean to reach Israeli settlements.

Earlier this week, he told Channel 14 News that his ministry was planning new power plants and gas pipelines across the West Bank, describing the move as “the economic key on the path to one million” settlers living in the territory.

Meanwhile, research by the Social Science Research Network published last year found that the carbon footprint generated during the first 15 months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza exceeded the annual emissions of more than 100 countries combined.

Since October 2023, Israel has devastated Gaza’s already fragile energy infrastructure, resulting in near-total electricity blackouts throughout 2024, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha).

Before the war, Gaza residents received an average of around 10 hours of electricity a day. Palestinian territories relied almost entirely on Israeli electricity supplies.

According to the Institute for Palestine Studies, Palestinians sourced 87 percent of their electricity from Israel before the war, with the remainder supplied by Egypt, Jordan and local solar power generation.

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Israels Gaza offshore gas plans condemned as illegal resource grab

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