Natural gas of Gaza to profit Palestinians

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Major natural gas fields off the coast of the Gaza Strip may prove a vital lifeline for a beleaguered Palestinian economy that has few other resources to exploit.

Israel's withdrawal from Gaza settlements this month has heightened international interests in exploiting the fields, first discovered more than five years ago.

"It is the first natural resource that we have in Palestine," said Omar Shaban, a Gaza-based economist.

"It's a very unique thing," he said. "We don't have oil or metals. We are not in the [Persian] Gulf, where every day they discover something."

The Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority and the government of Egypt signed an agreement last month to explore ways to exploit the fields off the Gaza coast and market the gas through Egyptian ports.

The revenue from natural gas sales would be a welcome boost for the Palestinian territory, where one-third of the work force is unemployed and 61 percent of all households have incomes below the poverty line.

International handouts cover about 70 percent of the Palestinian government's $2.2 billion budget.

A U.N. survey released Thursday found that the five-year uprising against Israel and the security barrier erected by the Israeli government have cost the Palestinian economy nearly $10 billion since the fighting began in 2000.

The economy shrank by 1 percent in 2004, according to the report.

"Economic realities on the ground after the prolonged conflict remain very harsh and uncertain, regardless of all the positive developments we've been witnessing recently," Raja Khalidi, the report's lead author, told reporters in Geneva.