Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline. British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority. [..] The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas to be of the order of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. [..] In 2001 .. Ariel Sharon stated unequivocally that “Israel would never buy gas from Palestine” intimating that Gaza’s offshore gas reserves belong to Israel.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11680
Chossudovsky (2009) – War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields
Chossudovsky (2009) – The Invasion of Gaza: “Operation Cast Lead”, Part of a Broader Israeli Military-Intelligence Agenda
key events that led up Operation Cast Lead: 1. The assassination in November 2004 of Yaser Arafat (ordered in 2003 by the Israeli cabinet); 2. The removal, under the orders of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2005, of all Jewish settlements in Gaza, a Jewish population of over 7,000 was evacuated; 3. The building of the infamous Apartheid Wall was decided upon at the beginning of the Sharon government; 4. Hamas election victory in January 2006 (without Arafat, the Israeli military-intelligence architects knew that Fatah under Mahmoud Abbas would loose the elections. With Hamas in charge of the Palestinian authority, using the pretext that Hamas is a terrorist organization, Israel would carry out the process of “cantonization” as formulated under the Dagan plan. Fatah under Mahmoud Abbas would remain formally in charge of the West Bank. The duly elected Hamas government would be confined to the Gaza strip)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11606