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Israel’s latest push for natural gas exploration off the coast of the Gaza Strip has sparked sharp criticism from Palestinian rights organizations and environmental campaigners, who argue the initiative violates international law, undermines Palestinian sovereignty, and poses unnecessary threats to marine ecosystems and the global climate.

In February 2024, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen formally approved the country’s fifth round of offshore gas licensing in the Mediterranean Sea. Per official documentation from Israel’s Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, the auction opens up roughly 8,600 square kilometers of Mediterranean waters for exploration, split across six distinct exploration blocks.

Adalah, a Haifa-based legal organization that advocates for Palestinian rights, has revealed that two of these six blocks sit within internationally recognized Palestinian maritime territory off Gaza’s shore. This is not the first time Israeli licensing rounds have encroached on Palestinian waters: the group notes that the previous offshore auction also extended into waters claimed by the State of Palestine.

Last month, Adalah submitted an official letter to both Cohen and Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara challenging the legality of the new licensing round. The correspondence, which has been shared with independent news outlet Middle East Eye, argues that the plan is unlawful because approximately 1,000 square kilometers of the proposed exploration area lies in waters over which Palestine claims full sovereignty. Adalah emphasizes that Israel holds no legal authority to conduct resource activities in these Palestinian maritime areas, noting that any exploration here would violate both Israeli domestic legislation and binding international law.

The organization rejects Israel’s ongoing military occupation of Palestinian territories as a valid justification for denying the inherent sovereign rights of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian people. It further points out that the drilling plans directly contradict the 1993 Oslo Accords, the landmark agreement signed between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization that laid out frameworks for Palestinian self-governance in occupied territories. Under international humanitarian law, Adalah notes, occupying powers are explicitly prohibited from exploiting natural resources in occupied territories for their own benefit—a rule the new exploration plan clearly violates.

Suhad Bishara, Adalah’s legal director, framed the gas plans as an inseparable component of a broader accelerating Israeli policy aimed at formalizing annexation and permanent control over all Palestinian land and natural resources. “This is not merely a violation of international law,” Bishara explained in a public statement. “It is a deliberate attempt to entrench permanent Israeli control over Palestinian territory and resources, directly undermining the Palestinian people’s fundamental right to self-determination.”

To date, the Israeli energy ministry has not publicly released the results of the licensing round since the tender was first announced, and Middle East Eye’s request for comment on the allegations went unanswered as of the original publication of this report.

Adalah’s investigation also connects the new exploration round to a long-standing pattern of Israeli restrictions that have systematically denied Palestinian access to their own offshore energy resources. Since the early 2000s, Israel has blocked the Palestinian Authority from developing the Gaza Marine gas field, which independent experts estimate holds up to 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Development of this field would generate an estimated $4 billion in revenue for the Palestinian Authority, according to industry projections. The organization also notes that Israel already exports billions of dollars worth of natural gas to Egypt via the Ashkelon-Arish pipeline, which traverses Palestinian maritime territory without any consent from Palestinian authorities.

Joining the condemnation are Israeli environmental advocates, who warn that the exploration plan carries severe ecological risks and runs counter to global efforts to transition away from fossil fuels. Yuval Arbel, a policy specialist with the Zalul Environmental Association, an Israeli group focused on protecting marine and freshwater resources, argues that Israel already holds sufficient domestic gas reserves to meet all its current and future energy needs. “There is no justification for expanding gas production,” Arbel told Middle East Eye. “Our policy priority should be accelerating the transition to renewable energy, not opening new fossil fuel exploration blocks.”

Arbel warned that offshore drilling carries inherent major risks to delicate Mediterranean marine ecosystems, and that expanded gas production will only worsen climate change by increasing global greenhouse gas emissions. He noted that while the energy ministry justifies new exploration on the grounds that renewables alone cannot meet future Israeli energy demand, the policy is primarily driven by the pursuit of short-term profit. “Even if extraction moves forward, production will not begin for another six to 10 years,” Arbel pointed out. “No one can accurately predict what global gas demand will look like in 10 or 15 years. There is no tangible public benefit for Israel in extracting more gas—this is solely about generating extra export revenue for the state.”

These claims are backed by recent official revenue figures: in 2024, the Israeli energy ministry reported record revenues from domestic gas production, with the state collecting 2.3 billion shekels (roughly $640 million) in royalties, an increase of more than 8% from the previous year. Israel’s offshore gas sector has been a major source of state revenue since it was privatized in 2015, and currently hosts operations from a range of international and domestic energy firms, including UK-based Energean and U.S. energy giant Chevron. Just one year prior, BP and Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy firm SOCAR won bids in Israel’s fourth licensing round, which was also widely criticized for violating Palestinian maritime sovereignty.

Arbel emphasized that even a low probability of a catastrophic oil or gas spill is unacceptable given the irreversible damage it would cause to Gaza’s and Israel’s Mediterranean coastlines. “The potential damage from drilling is so severe that even a small risk of disaster is not worth taking,” he said.

Over the past decade, natural gas has become Israel’s dominant source of electricity generation, displacing coal as the country’s top fuel. Knesset data shows that gas accounted for just 49% of Israeli electricity production in 2014; a decade later, that share has jumped to more than 70%, with coal and renewable energy each contributing roughly 14% of total generation.

The gas exploration plan off Gaza aligns with a broader aggressive policy agenda pursued by Minister Cohen since he took office in 2024, which centers on consolidating Israeli control over occupied Palestinian territories in line with demands from the Israeli settler movement. Just last week, Cohen announced plans to expand natural gas infrastructure into the occupied West Bank, explicitly framing the move as an exercise in de facto Israeli sovereignty. The project will extend Mediterranean gas supplies to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and earlier this week Cohen told Israeli outlet Channel 14 News that new power plants and gas pipelines across the West Bank are “the economic key on the path to one million settlers” living in the occupied territory.

The push for new fossil fuel exploration comes as Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza has already had extreme climate and energy impacts. Research published last year by the Social Science Research Network found that the carbon footprint generated in the first 15 months of military operations in Gaza exceeded the total annual emissions of more than 100 countries combined. Since October 2023, Israel has systematically destroyed Gaza’s already fragile energy infrastructure, leading to near-total nationwide electricity blackouts throughout 2024, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Before the current war, Gaza residents received an average of just 10 hours of electricity per day, with the entire occupied Palestinian territory relying almost entirely on energy supplies from Israel. Pre-war data from the Institute for Palestine Studies shows that Palestinians sourced 87% of their total electricity from Israel, with the remaining 13% coming from Egypt, Jordan, and small-scale local solar generation projects.

The future of Israel’s diplomatic presence in Istanbul has been thrown into uncertainty after the former consulate building failed a mandatory earthquake resilience inspection, forcing Israeli officials to evaluate multiple high-stakes options for reestablishing their mission.

Multiple informed sources speaking to Middle East Eye have confirmed that the multi-story mixed-use plaza that hosted the consulate has been marked for demolition, with a full redevelopment of the site scheduled to unfold over the next several years. The building has operated at partial capacity since October 2023, when Israel withdrew all its diplomatic staff from Turkey over growing security risks.

Early media reports claimed the consulate would remain closed indefinitely due to escalating political tensions between Ankara and Jerusalem, but new details reveal that structural and financial barriers — not diplomatic friction — are the primary driving force behind the current uncertainty. While the Israeli government owns portions of the existing building, integrating the strict security and operational specifications required for an Israeli diplomatic mission into the new redevelopment project has presented significant commercial hurdles and unexpected additional expenses.

The structure in question is a multi-level plaza that hosts a wide range of private businesses and commercial office spaces across its floors, classified as a semi-skyscraper under Turkish building regulations, making its planned demolition an uncommon step. Beyond the structural safety issue, the site has already been targeted in a high-profile security incident: in April, two Turkish police officers were injured in an attack on the now-vacant consulate by individuals linked to the Islamic State group.

“Israeli diplomatic facilities have very specific construction and security standards, and the private development leading the redevelopment will almost certainly not be able to meet these requirements because of how expensive they are,” one source familiar with the internal discussions explained. “If Israel wants to retain its consulate on the same plot, it will have to negotiate an agreement with the construction firm and allocate a separate budget to cover the extra costs.”

Even though the Israeli government will retain ownership of its share of the land after redevelopment is complete, sources say a continued consulate presence at the site is highly unlikely. Relocating the entire consulate operation to a new building in Istanbul is also proving to be a prohibitively expensive option, however.

Israeli diplomatic missions require extensive custom security upgrades, including high-level ballistic armor, reinforced structural elements, specialized secure communications cabling, 24/7 monitored surveillance camera systems, and a suite of other protective infrastructure. Independent estimates put the total cost of these upgrades for a new location at roughly $6 million, a figure that has sparked internal debate in Israel over whether the expenditure is justified when bilateral diplomatic relations between the two countries are effectively frozen.

At this stage, Israeli officials have not finalized a path forward. “Israel is currently reviewing all possible options, and no final decision on the matter has been made,” a second official source told Middle East Eye. But a third insider with knowledge of the government’s budget situation noted that no funding has been allocated for a relocation, making a move to a new Istanbul site an unlikely outcome for now.

The uncertainty over the consulate compound other strains on Turkish-Israeli bilateral ties: both countries currently have vacant chief-of-mission posts. Israel’s outgoing ambassador to Turkey, Irit Lillian, will retire from her post at the end of this month, while Turkey’s ambassador to Israel, Sakir Ozkan Torunlar, retired from his role last year and has yet to be replaced.

A groundbreaking ProPublica investigation has uncovered direct White House involvement in pushing through a $620 million Pentagon loan to a small North Carolina rare earth magnet startup connected to Donald Trump Jr., raising serious new questions about cronyism and ethical conflicts within the second Trump administration. When the historic loan was announced one year ago, top defense officials, company leaders, and representatives for the president’s eldest son moved quickly to dismiss public and congressional suspicions of political favoritism. Trump Jr.’s spokesperson stated he had no role in securing the deal, the Pentagon publicly insisted he did not influence the funding decision, and Vulcan Elements’ founder claimed the company received no preferential treatment because of its high-profile ties. But new interviews with multiple anonymous Pentagon officials and a review of internal Defense Department documents obtained by ProPublica tell a different story: the multi-hundred-million-dollar loan request for Vulcan was directly initiated by Peter Navarro, a senior White House trade advisor with close personal ties to Trump Jr.

According to one senior Pentagon official who was not cleared to speak publicly about the internal process, of the dozens of companies competing for Pentagon funding under the critical minerals initiative at the time, the Vulcan deal was the only one directly pushed forward by a top White House presidential aide. Two insiders involved in processing the loan confirmed that after receiving the request from the White House, defense leadership ordered staff to accelerate the review and approval process at an unprecedented pace. To meet the rushed timeline, Pentagon teams worked consecutive late nights, skipping downtime to push the massive loan through in just a matter of weeks, a stark departure from the months-long standard vetting process for comparable funding deals. One source directly involved summed up the internal directive: “The call came from the White House: We have to get this done.”

This revelation marks the first time that a federal agency contract or funding award under the second Trump administration has been directly tied to intentional White House intervention, adding fuel to longstanding allegations that the administration has directed government benefits to companies tied to the Trump family’s personal business interests. The loan itself was framed as part of a critical national security initiative to reduce U.S. dependence on China’s dominant grip on the global rare earth supply chain, a sector that underpins everything from commercial semiconductors to advanced military systems including Tomahawk missile guidance systems and F-35 fighter jet engines.

Roughly three months before the Pentagon made the loan public, Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, acquired an undisclosed stake in Vulcan, a two-year-old startup founded by a Harvard Business School student that had raised less than $10 million in total private funding ahead of the deal. Following the loan announcement, Vulcan’s estimated valuation surged tenfold from roughly $200 million to $2 billion, delivering an immediate windfall to its early investors including 1789 Capital. The investigation also revealed that a second company tied to Trump Jr. — Florida-based drone parts manufacturer Unusual Machines, where he holds a board advisory role and millions in personal equity — is also currently under review for Pentagon funding, following a 2025 defense contract for the firm that already sparked cronyism allegations.

Navarro, who served as Trump’s trade advisor during his first term and has built an extremely close personal relationship with Trump Jr. in recent years, has not responded to multiple requests for comment from ProPublica. Trump Jr. has previously stated he does not discuss his portfolio investments with administration officials and never spoke with Navarro about the Vulcan deal, claiming he had no knowledge of how the funding was approved. 1789 Capital has also denied any role in securing the loan. The White House issued a blanket defense of the process, stating in a formal statement that the administration “is working in the best interest of the American people,” adding that the entire team “is working together and with private industry to secure America’s critical mineral supply chain at Trump speed.” The Pentagon has repeatedly denied that political connections or outside affiliations play any role in its funding decisions.

The national security context for the loan is broadly supported by policymakers across the aisle: China currently controls nearly all global processing capacity for rare earth elements, a position it has already used to restrict exports to pressure geopolitical rivals, leaving U.S. military supply chains potentially vulnerable. The Office of Strategic Capital, the Pentagon unit that approved the Vulcan loan, was originally created under the Biden administration to support private-sector development of domestic rare earth capacity, with an initial $1 billion in lending authority. After taking office for a second term, the Trump administration dramatically expanded the office’s authority to $200 billion in total lending, overhauled its operating structure, and replaced the original slow, open application process with a model that relies heavily on the personal networks of new leadership drawn from Wall Street to source deals.

The Vulcan loan has drawn intense bipartisan criticism from ethics experts and congressional Democrats. Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer under the George W. Bush administration, called the intervention a clear abuse of power. “This is our money they’re spending,” Painter said. “This is corruption we pay for.” A group of Senate Democrats has demanded the Pentagon release a full accounting of Vulcan’s selection process, warning that the Trump family’s conflicts of interest could be “resulting in a waste of taxpayer dollars and a threat to national security.” The Pentagon’s response to the request did not address how Vulcan was selected, only addressing conflict of interest protocols for its own employees, not the president’s family. House Democrats attempted to subpoena Trump Jr. to testify about the deal earlier this year, but the effort was blocked by Republican lawmakers.

For other companies seeking funding from the revamped Office of Strategic Capital, the incident has reinforced a widespread perception that access depends on personal connections to the Trump circle rather than open competition. Brodie Sutherland, CEO of Nevada-based tungsten miner Patriot Critical Minerals, told ProPublica his firm hired a lobbyist with existing ties to the office to secure a meeting, adding, “Whether you need someone on the inside track to get it across the line I don’t know. We’re hopeful you don’t need to be chums with Trump Jr. to get a project across.” Defense Department records show Patriot Critical Minerals was already rejected for a loan, though the agency did not provide a reason for the denial. Sutherland said he still holds out hope for future funding.