160 THE BIGGER PICTURE.

Huge oil and gas fields have recently been discovered in the eastern Mediterranean Sea over the territorial waters of Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus and of course GAZA. These  Gas fields hold about 122 cubic feet of gas, plus the a potential of 1.6 barrels of oil. Needless to say that Israel wants its oil, now that Israel faces an upcoming energy security nightmare after cheap oil form Egypt's virtually exhausted oil fields are finished. Even Tony Blair came up with a brilliant plan for "developing" the Gaza gas fields via an agreement between British Gas and the Palestinian Authority, totally excluding Gaza.. The way Gaza is kept as a concentration camp, subjected to non stop collective punishments, may be revolting. But than it must be added the key economic component: by all available means Gaza must be prevented from accessing the Marine-1 and Marine - 2 gas fields. These will be gobbled up by Israel. Israel lords over all Palestinian natural resources - land, water and energy. So here is the "secret" of  Operation Protective Edge: the possibility that Palestinians could have their own gas generated wealth is an absolute red line. And even the European Union is in it for it, as it will make Europe less dependent on Russian gas.