BDS claims win as energy giants quit Israeli gas project off Gaza
Dana Petroleum is out of the Israeli-led consortium licensed to explore for gas in waters Palestinians claim, months after Italy’s Eni walked away; and the US driller Murphy Oil has already taken their place.
Key points
- Israel granted six Zone G offshore exploration licences on 9 November 2026 to Ratio Energies and Murphy Offshore Oil, 50 percent each, with Murphy as operator. 3
- The licences cover about 1,700 square kilometres of seabed roughly 25 kilometres south-west of the Leviathan gas field. 3
- Dana Petroleum and Eni, the original foreign partners awarded the block in October 2023, are absent from the new licence list; Eni withdrew in March 2026. 2
- Korea National Oil Corporation told Korea’s Board of Audit and Inspection in August 2026 that it intended to withdraw from the consortium. 2
- The BDS movement claimed Dana’s exit as a major victory on 11 November 2026 and called for immediate pressure on Murphy Oil. 1
Three readings of the same result
Same facts, different frames. Each reading names its outlets and what it emphasizes.
A market entry where campaigners see a rout.
The Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post treated 9 November as a market story: an American driller’s first Mediterranean entry, a 50-50 split with Ratio, and the Petroleum Council’s recommendation.
Key detail The financial press noted the option value: about 1,700 square kilometres, a well due within 36 months, no discovery yet to price.
The East follows the paper trail back to Seoul.
In South Korea the story is a state-company governance story.
Key detail KNOC is state-owned, Dana its Aberdeen subsidiary, and the pressure ran through Korean institutions: a petition to the audit board, a formal audit demand in…
The South counts the win, then the gas still underground.
Al Jazeera’s report led with the BDS claim and the question of who controls gas in waters Palestinians claim.
Key detail The BDS National Committee called the two exits proof of what it describes as Israel’s intensifying isolation, and turned its attention to Murphy Oil, the…
Sources by lens: 5 West, 1 East, 1 Global South. See every source
The story
Two names missing from the licence list
On Monday 9 November, Israel’s Petroleum Commissioner granted six offshore exploration licences for the Zone G block to Ratio Energies and Murphy Offshore Oil, a subsidiary of the Houston-based Murphy Oil Corporation. The licences cover about 1,700 square kilometres of seabed roughly 25 kilometres south-west of the Leviathan gas field, held 50-50, with Murphy as operator.
Two names were missing from the award: Dana Petroleum, the Aberdeen-based company that had held the block since October 2023, and Italy’s Eni, which had already walked away in March. Within two days, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement declared a major victory, calling Dana’s exit the second withdrawal of an international energy company from the project. Al Jazeera reported the claim on Thursday 12 November, asking who controls the gas reserves in waters claimed by Palestinians.
The award does not end the project. It replaces the departed partners with an American operator, and the campaign that forced the exits has already turned its attention to Murphy Oil.
A three-year consortium, unpicked in two exits
Israel awarded the Zone G licences in October 2023, days after the 7 October attacks and the start of the war in Gaza, to Eni as operator, Israel’s Ratio Energies and Dana Petroleum, a subsidiary of South Korea’s state-run KNOC. The block sits in waters where the State of Palestine declared maritime boundaries in 2019, a declaration Israel does not recognise.
Eni left first. After a sustained campaign led by ReCommon and BDS Italia, the Italian giant withdrew in March 2026, later confirming to the Business & Human Rights Centre that it had left the consortium. Israel’s Petroleum Council then recommended amending the composition of the winning group.
Dana’s departure was documented in Seoul before it showed up in the licence list. In August 2026 KNOC told Korea’s Board of Audit and Inspection, in reply to a citizens’ audit demand, that it intended to withdraw, without giving a timetable. On 5 November campaigners received the audit agency’s reply, which closed the complaint, finding the licensing process had stopped, KNOC had acquired no exploration right, and Dana planned to withdraw.
The new licences run three years, extendable to seven, and the partners must drill an exploration well within 36 months. Murphy, listed in New York and valued at about $5.5 billion, is entering the Mediterranean for the first time. For background, see what is happening in Gaza.
What is still unknown about Dana’s exit; and Murphy’s arrival?
Neither Dana nor KNOC has confirmed the withdrawal publicly. Dana did not respond to enquiries from the Business & Human Rights Centre, and the exit is evidenced by the company’s absence from the 9 November award and by KNOC’s reply to the Korean auditors.
Whether Murphy Oil will face the same pressure, and how it will answer it, is also unknown. The BDS movement has now called for immediate pressure on Murphy, and seventeen Palestinian trade unions have called for global action between 20 and 29 November.
The largest unknowns are under the seabed. No well has been drilled in Zone G and no discovery announced; the licences are an option on acreage, not a producing field. The waters’ legal status is contested: campaigners say part of the block overlaps the maritime boundaries Palestine declared in 2019, putting the overlap at 62 percent, while Israel licenses the block as its own exclusive economic zone. What happens to Gaza Marine, the Palestinians’ own undeveloped field about 17 miles off Gaza, is a separate question no licence answers.
A campaign template that now moves energy majors
The two exits matter because they show a boycott and divestment campaign reshaping an energy consortium, not only consumer brands. Eni and Dana were the original foreign partners of a project awarded at the height of the Gaza war; within eight months both were gone, and the consortium survived only by recruiting an American operator. Campaigners in Scotland, South Korea and Italy claimed both exits as wins and urged investors, insurers and contractors to stay out.
The gas itself matters. The eastern Mediterranean has become a strategic energy basin, and the contest over who licenses, drills and sells its gas runs through the region’s politics, as the Aphrodite-Ishai deal showed. Leviathan already anchors Israel’s gas exports, and Zone G was meant to extend that frontier south-west; whoever drills there inherits the geology and the legal argument alike.
The legal shadow matters too. The International Court of Justice found in July 2024 that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful, and addressed the exploitation of natural resources. The Palestinian legal centre Adalah has challenged the fourth offshore tender since February 2024, and a licence, being a government act, is contestable in court as well as in the campaign.
Five dimensions of a licence list that reads like a verdict
Geopolitics: the award redraws a small piece of the eastern Mediterranean map. Israel keeps Zone G alive with an American operator after losing its European and Korean partners, tying the block more tightly to Washington. The campaign has shown it can reach a licensing process through three countries at once.
Economics: the numbers are modest and the signal is large. Six licences, 1,700 square kilometres, a $5.5 billion operator taking half; against a $35 billion Leviathan export contract. Zone G’s value is prospective; the campaign raised the reputational price of holding it.
People: the campaign was built by networks; Scottish solidarity groups and trade unions, Korean civil society and auditors, Italian campaigners who forced Eni out first. Its leverage was institutional as much as vocal: petitions, audit demands and employee engagement, sustained for more than a year.
Historical patterns: the BDS movement models itself on the boycott of apartheid South Africa, and Zone G follows that template: isolate the project, raise the cost of participation, let each exit ease the next. Eni’s withdrawal set the precedent; Dana’s made it a pattern.
Technology and transition: gas is the fuel the energy transition cannot decide about, and exploration licences now carry a climate argument as well as a legal one. Korean campaigners tied their statement to the COP31 summit, arguing that new exploration contradicts the pledges made there.
Murphy inherits the campaign, and the clock starts
The first consequence lands on Murphy Oil. The company that replaced Dana and Eni is now the campaign’s named target, with the BDS movement calling for immediate pressure and seventeen Palestinian unions calling for action from 20 to 29 November. Murphy has said nothing publicly, and its first test will be whether it answers at all.
The second runs through the supply chain. Campaigners urge investors, insurers and contractors to stay out of Zone G; the lesson is that pressure need not reach the operator; it reached the auditor, the parliament and the parent company first. A contractor weighing a Zone G contract now prices in a campaign it did not ask for.
The third is Israel’s own licensing calendar. A fifth bid round opened in July, proposals due by 27 January 2027, and the Zone G experience will shape how bidders value the next blocks. The fourth is legal: Adalah’s challenge and the International Court of Justice’s 2024 opinion give the dispute a courtroom track beside the campaign track, and a licence that survives one may still fail the other. The gas has not been found, and the argument over who may look for it is not settled.
What happens to the gas, and to the campaign, now?
Watch Murphy Oil first. Its filings and any public response to the boycott call will show whether it intends to ride out the pressure, and whether shareholders raise the question. Watch KNOC and Dana too: a formal confirmation of the withdrawal would close the ambiguity the campaign has exploited, and its absence keeps the story alive.
Watch the calendar. The trade-union action runs from 20 to 29 November, the fifth bid round closes on 27 January 2027, and Zone G’s 36-month drilling clock is already running. If no well is drilled, the licences lapse and the block returns to the market unproven.
Watch the courts and the climate summit. Adalah’s challenge continues, the COP31 debate over new exploration sharpens, and the marches across Europe that have sustained the campaign for three years show no sign of stopping. The licence list changed the names on a block. It did not settle who owns the gas beneath it.
What we agree on, and what remains open
Established
- Israel granted six Zone G exploration licences on 9 November 2026 to Ratio Energies and Murphy Offshore Oil, 50 percent each with Murphy as operator, covering about 1,700 square kilometres some 25 kilometres south-west of Leviathan.
- Dana Petroleum and Eni, the original foreign partners awarded the block in October 2023, are not on the new licence list.
- Eni withdrew in March 2026.
- KNOC told Korea’s audit agency in August 2026 that it intended to withdraw.
- The BDS movement claimed the exits as a major victory on 11 November.
Contested
- Whether Dana’s exit was caused by the boycott campaign, as the campaigners claim, or by commercial and licensing considerations, as the quiet administrative record allows.
- Whether Murphy Oil will withstand the pressure now directed at it or follow its predecessors out.
- Whether the waters are Israel’s exclusive economic zone or overlap the maritime boundaries Palestine declared in 2019.
- Whether the gas will ever be drilled, given the 36-month deadline and the legal challenges.
Still open
- Whether Dana or KNOC will confirm the withdrawal in their own words.
- How Murphy Oil will answer the campaign now aimed at it.
- Whether a well will be drilled within the deadline or the licences will lapse.
- How the courts will rule on the challenge to the fourth tender.
- What, if anything, will happen to Gaza Marine, the Palestinians’ own undeveloped field off the Gaza coast.
What to watch
Questions, answered
Two foreign partners have left the consortium licensed to explore the Zone G block. Italy’s Eni withdrew in March 2026, and Dana Petroleum, owned by South Korea’s state oil company, is absent from the six licences Israel granted on 9 November. The block now belongs to Ratio Energies and the US driller Murphy Oil, each holding 50 percent.
The movement says a year-long campaign of demonstrations, phone actions, sit-ins and audit demands in Scotland, South Korea and Italy forced both exits. It points to KNOC’s written reply to Korea’s audit agency in August, stating an intent to withdraw, and to the licence list itself, where Dana’s name no longer appears.
Israel licenses Zone G as part of its exclusive economic zone, about 25 kilometres south-west of the Leviathan field. Palestine declared maritime boundaries in 2019, and campaigners say part of the block overlaps them. The International Court of Justice addressed resource exploitation in its July 2024 advisory opinion, and the tender faces a legal challenge.
Murphy must drill an exploration well within 36 months under licences running an initial three years. The BDS movement has called for immediate pressure on the company, and seventeen Palestinian trade unions have called for global action from 20 to 29 November. Israel’s fifth offshore bid round closes on 27 January 2027.