The US, Israel and UAE have discussed using profits from Gaza’s offshore gas supplies to help pay for the reconstruction of the destroyed enclave, one former Western official and a current Western and Arab official told Middle East Eye.
The discussions have taken various forms, but one includes the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) taking a stake in Gaza’s undeveloped gas fields and those funds contributing to the reconstruction of Gaza, the sources told MEE.
The talks are preliminary, and like much of the post-war planning for Gaza that the US has spearheaded, even before a ceasefire was signed in October, no hard commitments have been made, the sources said.
But the former Western official told MEE that the idea of monetising Gaza’s gas for reconstruction resurfaced in December.
Gas was discovered in Gaza’s marine field in 2000.
The rights to develop the gas are shared between two entities: the Palestine Investment Forum, which is the Palestinian Authority’s sovereign wealth fund, and the Consolidated Contractors Company, a construction and energy conglomerate owned by a Palestinian diaspora family headquartered in Greece.
About 45% of the rights are also reserved for an international partner. Egypt had eyed taking a stake before the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel and the subsequent war in the enclave, which has been recognised as a genocide by the United Nations.
Gaza’s gas
“The project is very much commercially viable,” Michael Barron, an expert on Eastern Mediterranean gas and author of The Gaza Marine Story, a book about Gaza’s wealth, told MEE.
When Barron worked on the project 15 years ago, he said the cost to develop the gas field was estimated at $750m and that it would generate about $4bn of revenue, with annual profits of $100m a year for 15 years going to the Palestinian Authority.
“This is the Palestinians’ most valuable natural resource at the moment. Development of it would contribute to reconstruction,” he said.
The UN estimates the full cost of Gaza’s reconstruction is substantially higher, coming in at $70bn.
But the US and Israel are nowhere near discussing a complete rebuilding of the enclave that was decimated by Israel’s onslaught.
Instead, a team of US political appointees close to President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who are ensconced at two luxury Tel Aviv hotels, is working on a smaller plan to build temporary housing units in the Israeli-occupied half of Gaza.
The former Western official said he had spoken with high-ranking diplomats from Egypt and the Gulf states, including the UAE, all of which were opposed to contributing to the plan that would leave Gaza divided.
Trump’s plan for an international force to deploy to Gaza has stalled because Arab and Muslim states, which are expected to contribute troops, are wary of being caught between Hamas, which has not disarmed, and Israeli soldiers, entrenched in half of Gaza.
But the current Western official said discussions about monetising Gaza’s gas resources were still progressing.
“There has been a broader conversation about linking Gaza’s gas to the region’s network of Eastern Mediterranean fields,” the official said.
MEE contacted the Emirati and Israeli embassies in Washington for comment, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication. The State Department also did not respond.
Israel has emerged as a natural gas powerhouse in the Levant.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the export of $35bn worth of gas to Egypt, whose own offshore gas fields are in decline.
The UAE has shown interest in Eastern Mediterranean gas. Adnoc and BP walked out of taking a $2bn stake in Israel’s NewMed Energy in 2024 amid the war in Gaza. NewMed owns a 45 percent stake in Leviathan, Israel’s biggest gas field, and 30% of Aphrodite, a field located off the coast of Cyprus.
More diplomats and regional officials who have spoken with MEE expect the UAE to play a larger role in Gaza compared to its Gulf neighbours.
UAE role in Gaza?
Qatar, which previously sent aid to the enclave in coordination with Israel and hosts Hamas’s leadership at the request of the US, said it will not fund Gaza’s reconstruction.
“We are not the ones who are going to write the check to rebuild what others destroyed… Israel flattened this land,” Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said in an interview at the Doha Forum in December.
Saudi Arabia has also been non-committal. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not pledge any funds to Gaza in an Oval Office meeting in November with Trump.
“No one wants to stump up money for this reconstruction,” the western official said. “But investing in natural resources, for a country like the UAE, could be a way to do something.”
The Trump administration has already condensed much of its diplomacy in Ukraine, another warzone, to a business transaction. Trump has also tied a peace deal between Rwanda and Congo to critical minerals.
With Qatar and Saudi Arabia on the sidelines, the UAE has emerged as the main Gulf partner willing to work with the US and Israel in Gaza.
Abu Dhabi is the largest humanitarian donor to the enclave.
US and Israeli officials have also held talks with a former Bulgarian diplomat and UN envoy who teaches at the UAE’s diplomatic academy about serving on the ground in Gaza as a liaison to Trump’s “Board of Peace”.
Source: MEE
