UK Fossil Fuel Giant Sends Millions of Pounds to Company That Helps Illegal West Bank Settlements

A fossil fuel giant involved in climate-wrecking oil extraction in the UK sent hundreds of millions of pounds to a company accused of helping to maintain illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine, Novara Media can reveal.

Ithaca Energy is the ninth biggest owner of North Sea oil licences, with stakes in six of the ten largest producing fields in the UK continental shelf, according to recent research by thinktank Common Wealth.

The firm is one of the main operators of the controversial Rosebank oil field, the UK’s largest undeveloped oil and gas field, which hit headlines last year after firms including Ithaca were given the go ahead to develop the field despite warnings the move risked breaking the UK’s pledge to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Late last year, Ithaca confirmed it was targeting a planned dividend for the financial year of 2023 of $400m. The final financial results for 2023 are yet to be released, but results covering part of the year reviewed by Novara Media confirm that the company has already already paid out well over half that figure in dividends.

Some $355m of that expected $400m will go to Israeli oil and gas giant Delek Group, which owns 88.5% of the shares in Ithaca Energy.

This is despite the fact that Delek was specifically named in a 2020 UN list of businesses whose activities in the West Bank “raised particular human rights concerns”.

The firm was criticised for the the “use of natural resources, in particular water and land, for business purposes” and the “provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements”, which are considered illegal under international law.

An updated UN list released in June last year removed several companies but confirmed that Delek was continuing to support settlements in the West Bank.

Since that UN report and the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza, the situation for Palestinians living in the West Bank dozens of miles away from the besieged city has severely worsened.

In the two months after the October 7th attacks, the UN’s OCHA agency reported some 276 Palestinian fatalities amid a huge spike in violence by Israeli military and settlers against Palestinians.

Activists are protesting Ithaca Energy in central London, an oil and gas company with part ownership of Rosebank oil field owned by Israeli conglomerate Delek Group complicit in the occupation of the occupation of the West Bank.

Climate justice Justice for Palestine pic.twitter.com/AKOmcXoOJ7

— Lukas Slothuus (@lslothuus) November 6, 2023

The revelations come as campaigners are increasingly pointing out links between the climate crisis and Israel’s actions against Palestine. Earlier this month, demonstrators led by Energy Embargo for Palestine occupied the British Museum to protest its sponsorship by BP, which was granted licences by the Israeli government for natural gas exploration off the coast of Gaza last year. In November, protesters gathered outside Ithaca’s offices in central London.

Campaigners said that the profits sent to Delek by Ithaca are concerning and that the company and its UK subsidiary should face sanctions.

“Continued fossil fuel extraction from the North Sea is already totally wrongheaded from an environmental perspective, but if North Sea oil profits are also being syphoned off to fund Israel’s illegal settlements then it’s a double outrage,” Peter Frankental, economic affairs director at Amnesty International UK told Novara Media.

“Israel’s vast illegal settlements project is an integral part of its wider system of apartheid against the Palestinians and no North Sea oil licensee should have business links to the settlements and hope to hold onto their licence.

“The UK needs to ensure there’s proper even-handedness in how businesses are allowed to operate. If, for example, Delek had been supplying services to Russian-occupied Crimea rather than illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory, then both it and its UK subsidiary Ithaca Energy would likely have been caught by the UK’s sanctions regime on Russia.

“Ministers must act on these reports, ensuring that there’s no corporate linkage between a major North Sea oil licensee and the Israeli settlements, not least when ministers themselves acknowledge that Israel’s settlements are completely illegal under international law.”

“The UK government is not only sacrificing our climate for corporate profit through North Sea Oil licences, but is giving an extra boost to businesses voraciously involved in Israel’s West Bank settlements, all illegal in international law,” added Neil Sammonds of campaign group War on Want. “The UK government should be sanctioning such companies, not rewarding them.”

Ithaca Energy, Delek and the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero did not respond to a request for comment.