New Israeli Oil Find near Gaza Could Drive Hamas, Abbas into War
Israel may have struck it rich twice – once with indications of oil off the southern coast and twice with the prospect of Hamas and Abbas fighting it out over probably claims to the Israeli discovery. ● A new oil discovery in southern Israel might turn out to be the catalyst for an internal and self-destructive war in the Palestinian Authority, with Hamas in Gaza and chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah likely to claim ownership of a new Israeli offshore oil discovery near Ashdod. When the Tamar and Leviathan gas and oil fields off the Haifa and Hadera coast, in northern Israel, were discovered, Lebanon and Hezbollah quickly claimed that energy reserves were in their territorial waters. The oil and gas reserves are clearly within Israel’s territorial waters, but the fields could extend as far as the waters off the Lebanese coast. Lebanon warned the American Noble Energy company not to approach its territory, and Hezbollah it would go to war over the oil and gas fields. Since then, Israel has brought gas into production, and Lebanon and Hezbollah have kept quiet, partly because the United States has mediated by proposing a boundary between Lebanon and Israel’s maritime economic zones. Now comes the Israeli Shemen Oil and Gas Company which reported on Saturday indications of “high quality of oil” following offfshore drilling at its Yam-3 well, 10 miles from the southern port city of Ashdod, located only a few miles north of Gaza. The drilling reached a depth of 19,000 feet undersea, but the possibility of commercial production awaits further tests.