Days after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on the Gaza Strip, the Israeli government has ordered its state-owned electricity company to cut off power to the area.
The Israeli prime minister’s office said the security cabinet had approved several measures, including cutting off fuel and electricity supplies and the entry of goods into the Israeli-occupied territory, in an effort to destroy the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and Islamic Jihad “for many years.”
“I have signed an order instructing the (Israel) Electric Company to stop supplying electricity to Gaza,” AFP quoted Energy Minister Israel Katz as saying in a statement.
Meantime, Joe Biden has said that Israel has the right to defend itself and cautioned hostile countries not to exploit the latest attacks. “This is not a moment for parties hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to gain an edge. The world is watching,” Biden said on national television. A senior Biden administration official has revealed that the United States is currently engaged in intense talks with Israel about its particular needs, noting that Washington always shares timely intelligence.
Israel, after suffering its worst security and intelligence failure since the Yom Kippur War half a century ago, has launched retaliatory attacks against Gaza and Lebanon. Both sides have suffered heavy casualties, with 1,200 dead, including nine Americans, and many more wounded. There have been claims by Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group that they have captured more than 130 people from Israel and brought them into Gaza.
It’ll be interesting to see how the region’s energy situation evolves in the wake of this disaster. In August, French energy company TotalEnergies (NYSE:TTE) placed its first drilling rig in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Lebanon, near the Israeli border, where it hopes to begin exploring for gas. The cash-strapped country hopes that future gas sales could help it emerge from a deep financial crisis that has seen the local currency lose more than 98% of its value.
“The arrival of the equipment marks an important step in the preparation of the drilling of the exploration well in Block 9, which will start towards the end of August 2023,” TotalEnergies said in a statement. TotalEnergies is leading a consortium of energy companies working on the offshore project. The consortium includes Italian oil and gas giant Eni S.p.A. (NYSE:E) and state-owned QatarEnergy.
The drilling comes after a landmark U.S.-brokered agreement last year that saw Lebanon and Israel establish a maritime border for the first time. Back in May, Lebanon’s Energy Minister Walid Fayad said they hoped to determine whether the exploratory block had recoverable gas reserves by the end of this year.