Over the past few months, horrific footage has been released in the Gaza conflict zone of Israeli forces looting the property of Palestinians fleeing the brutal invasion. The soldiers can be seen smiling at the camera and showing off watches, jewelry, cash and even carpets and sports jerseys they have stolen from Palestinian homes. Historical artifacts stolen from Gaza are also on display in parliament.
Similar looting by Russian soldiers in Ukraine has been well documented and ridiculed, but international media has paid little attention to Israel’s sacking of Gaza.
While some may find it hard to believe that a highly paid soldier from a wealthy country would commit such a crime, this is not surprising to Palestinians. The scenes in these videos are very reminiscent of what happened to Palestinians fleeing ethnic cleansing by Zionist forces on their property during the 1948 Nakba.
As Israeli historian Adam Raz explains in his recent book, The Plunder of Arab Property in the Wars of Independence, Jewish fighters and civilians were forced to buy everything from jewelry, books, and embroidered gowns to food, livestock, and furniture. , kitchen utensils, and even floor tiles were looted.
Once established, the State of Israel continued to steal from the Palestinians on a larger scale, depriving them of their land and property. Palestine’s natural resources, especially water, have also been plundered. Today, the war in Gaza serves as a convenient cover for a new wave of theft. This time, Israel is attempting to plunder offshore gas reserves that are the property of the Palestinian state.
In late October, Israel’s Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure announced that it had awarded concessions for natural gas exploration in an area that largely overlaps with Gaza’s maritime border to Israeli and foreign companies.
Needless to say, as an occupier, Israel has no right under any circumstances to grant licenses in areas over which it does not have sovereignty.
Palestine is a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and declares its maritime boundaries in accordance with these principles.
Israel has not signed UNCLOS. Furthermore, it does not recognize the state of Palestine, and despite growing calls for recognition of the state of Palestine from all over the world, including the United States, which is the main sponsor, Congress recently declared itself “opposed to unilateral recognition of the state of Palestine.” We have further strengthened this position by voting to Two-state solution.
The combination of these positions gave Israel an excuse to deny Palestinian maritime borders and expropriate the resources of these areas. Of course, these Israeli claims do not legitimize Israel’s actions.
Why foreign companies including Italy’s Eni, Britain’s BP and Dana Petroleum, a subsidiary of the Korea National Oil Corporation, continue to participate in the agreement, especially amid Israel’s ongoing campaign against the International Court of Justice claims. Some people may wonder why he decided to do so. It was identified as a possible case of genocide.
On February 8, four Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations, Adalah, Al-Mezan, Al-Haq, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, issued a joint news release regarding gas exploration licenses awarded in Palestinian occupied waters.
They announced that they had sent a letter to Israel’s Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure requesting that the award and related bids be canceled. It also said it had sent legal notices to Eni, Dana Petroleum and Israel Ratio Petroleum asking them not to engage in any activity related to the licenses.
“The International Criminal Court currently conducts active investigations into international crimes committed within the territory of the State of Palestine and has the power to investigate and prosecute individuals it finds responsible for war crimes, including looting. We should be aware that we have it.” Complicity in war crimes such as plunder is also a serious criminal offense, and corporate actors may be subject to individual criminal liability… [international humanitarian law] “It may also expose companies like yours, and your managers and employees, to the risk of civil lawsuits seeking damages,” the notice warns.
Apart from the illegality of the gas tender under international law, it is important to point out the involvement of the European company Eni here. Israel’s involvement in gas exploration projects “must clearly and explicitly state that all agreements between the State of Israel and the European Union do not apply to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967.” This contradicts the long-standing EU position.
Israel’s announcement of the license comes more than a year after the EU signed a memorandum of understanding on regional cooperation on gas extraction with the energy ministers of Egypt and Israel on June 15, 2022. This comes just months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and as the EU races to divest from Russian gas.
Interestingly, the memorandum omitted a territorial clause that the EU had promised to include to protect Palestinian territory and waters from illegal exploitation. Members of the European Parliament raised the issue with the EU Commission a week after signing the memorandum.
The response from the EU Commission denied the significance of this omission on a rather technical point, stating that the Memorandum of Understanding is of a non-binding nature and therefore “territorial provisions on applicability are deemed not necessary”. insisted. Nevertheless…the implementation of such memorandum does not apply in any way to the occupied Palestinian territories, whereby Israel’s natural gas supplies pursuant to the implementation of the memorandum are expropriated from the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. This means that it is not derived from resources. ”
In this connection, there are two questions worth raising to the EU Commission. The question is whether this inaction facilitated Israel’s violation of Palestinian rights, and what will be the fate of Eni’s involvement in the project.
This development also comes at a critical time when EU countries have taken a highly problematic stance on the Gaza war, supporting the occupier’s “right of self-defense” against the occupied population and sending weapons to the occupying forces. There is.
Furthermore, EU countries have cut off financial support to UNRWA, which is effectively the only lifeline for starving Gaza residents.
The recent stance taken by Western countries against violent illegal settlers in the West Bank is a step in the right direction, but it will not stop Israel’s blatant attempts to plunder Palestinian resources with the help of European companies. Without it, growing cynicism will become even more entrenched. In the Global South, about Western duplicity regarding the application of international law.
The EU could right some of its own wrongs by helping the Palestinians develop their natural resources. Amid all the noise about post-conflict reconstruction of Gaza and who will pay for it, it is important to consider the rich gas resources of the Gaza sea area as an important financial resource that can be used to secure a prosperous future for the Palestinian people. is important. The EU can play an important role in helping the Palestinians develop and benefit from these resources, which are their sovereign right.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.