The international community celebrated the decision to allow the Palestinians to develop the Gaza Marine gas field as a boon to underprivileged people struggling to keep the lights on.
However, environmental experts warn that it may be too soon to celebrate.
Israel announced Sunday that it had granted preliminary approval to cooperate with Egypt and the Palestinian Authority to develop the Gaza Marine gas field 36 kilometers off the shores of the Gaza Strip.
The Marine undersea gas field was discovered in 2000 by British Gas. It sat dormant for 23 years because Israel disapproved of its development on political and security grounds. The field is estimated to hold more than 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to media reports, which would cover the gas needs of the Gaza Strip and allow for export.
Israel, Egypt and the PA revived talks about developing the gas field after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, as Europeans were looking for alternatives to Russian energy.
But some environmental experts say that offshore drilling in the Mediterranean could put Israel and the Palestinians at risk if proper safety measures are not implemented. Maya Jacobs, CEO and co-founder of Climate Net, noted a high risk of an oil spill that could harm all of the Mediterranean coast, including damaging the desalination plant in Ashkelon.
In 2014, an inoperative Gaza sewage plant endangered the plant after more than 90,000 cubic meters of sewage was poured into Wadis daily. It made its way to the Mediterranean Sea near the coast of Ashkelon.
"Such a spill would affect Israel's water supply, which would also affect agriculture, tourism, commerce and many other fields," Jacobs said.
She added that Israel's Environmental Protection and Energy ministries have only small teams to inspect the rigs, and the system is "very poorly managed. If things are managed so badly on the Israeli side, they will be managed even more poorly on the Palestinian side - less supervision to ensure that nothing happens."
There is also no sufficient emergency preparedness to stop a leak if something happens.
While the gas companies call it natural gas, it is actually methane, which is prone to leaking throughout the entire process of drilling, transport and use.
A 2022 report by the Guardian showed that there were 1,000 "super-emitter" sites globally that "gushed the potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere … mostly from oil and gas facilities."
Methane is 80 times more dangerous than carbon in terms of climate impact. Alongside the gas is a type of oil produced called condensate, which has been linked to cancer formation and progression in various studies.
Jacobs explained that the condensate is a very vaporizing type of oil, of which half is expected to evaporate in case of a spill and become "a deadly, poisonous cloud." The other half, which remains in the water, is challenging to clean up because it is absorbed.
"If you swim in it or drink it or buy fish grown in it, you are eating pollution, or it will kill all the fish in the sea," Jacobs said.
"If you swim in it or drink it or buy fish grown in it, you are eating pollution, or it will kill all the fish in the sea"
Maya Jacobs, CEO and co-founder of Climate Net
At the same time, the Gaza Strip and the border around it is a volatile area with regular terror escalations. There is an additional fear that an erroneously aimed rocket could hit a rig and explode, spreading more condensate than any leak in a short period.
While the gas field is meant to bring revenue to the Palestinian Authority, more money will likely make it into the hands of mega gas companies that will establish the field and never reach the people it is intended for. It could also be used to fund terror.
Additionally, the Washington Post estimated that the project would cost $1.4 billion to develop - a lot of money to invest in an industry that, hopefully in five to 10 years, will be obsolete because the world is doing everything it can to stop using fossil fuels.
Jacobs said one has to question if it is right to invest money in oil now or if that money should be used to help build a more sustainable energy infrastructure in the Strip.
According to Hebrew University Professor Itay Fischhendler, in 2019, Gaza produced 25% of its daily energy from solar polar - although that number is slightly decreasing because that is 25% out of eight hours of available electricity at the time, meaning only around two hours a day. However, he said that at the pace the Strip was developing solar between 2017-2019, he assumes it has more than 25% of its energy from the sun today.
The program has been hindered by Israel refusing to allow Gaza to store solar rechargeable batteries because they can be used for rockets, Fischhendler explained.
"Gaza could run almost independently on solar and not need this gas if we allowed them to store the batteries," Fischhendler said.
Finally, Israel signed the Global Methane Pledge launched at COP 26 in 2021, which commits the country to work with the other 149 countries that signed the pledge to collectively reduce methane emissions by at least 30% below 2020 levels by 2030. The Gaze Marine goes against this goal.
The environmental activities community is divided on the matter. For example, despite its potential ecological hazard, EcoPeace has long supported the Palestinian Authority's exploiting the small gas field off the Gaza coast.
"This is an exception to the overall position of EcoPeace that no new drilling of gas should take place on the Eastern Mediterranean," Gidon Bromberg, Israeli director of EcoPeace Middle East, told the Post. "Given the very difficult economic situation that the Palestinian people face, the wealth produced could help build much-needed climate resilience, including water desalination and sewage treatment, both urgently needed.
"From a regional security perspective, the deal strengthens common interests that should be expanded to include cooperation over renewable energy production," he continued. "EcoPeace supports the development of appropriate area C renewable energy production and its possible utilization across the Israeli grid to supply renewables to Gaza and the import of renewables from Jordan to both Israel and the West Bank."
'We want our Palestinian neighbors to have a source of energy'
Jacobs noted too that although her organization is against any new offshore drilling whatsoever and "we understand that climate change is happening now and that Israel and the Middle East should do everything in their power to stop using fossil fuels altogether if there are no plans to stop the drilling in other areas of the Mediterranean, "we want our Palestinian neighbors to have a source of energy and income that would help them."
Developing the Gaza Marine gas field will take several years. During that time, it will be essential to get some answers, such as what kind of inspections will be put into place, what kind of deterrence there will be against oil spills, how the sea and the people living alongside it will be protected, and how much it will cost.
Additionally, how the money will make it to Gazans and how much will need to be examined.
As Jacobs said, "There is often a big gap between fantasy and reality."