On October 7, the Palestine group Hamas launched a brutal terror attack from the Gaza Strip killing hundreds and wounding many and also prompted Israel to retaliate by airstrikes on the Palestinian territory. Israel has now launched a ground force offensive in Gaza in the hunt for Hamas militants. Hamas and Israel have a history of conflict. According to international news reports, Hamas has said it was motivated to launch the attack essentially as a culmination of long-building anger over Israeli policy, including recent outbreaks of violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem but more generally over the treatment of Palestinians and the expansion of Israeli settlements.
Back home, Phatshwane’s fear is that the Israel and Palestine conflict may escalate into a full scale regional war which will have ripple effects in the fuel industry. “The Israel-Palestine conflict has the potential to increase the global prices of fuel. This situation will not only affect the corporate world but ordinary citizens as well across the world,” a worried Phatshwane said recently when giving welcome remarks at the Botswana Chamber of Mines (BCM) Inter-Mines First Aid Games. He added that fuel producing countries in the Middle East produce about 30% of the world’s fuel hence the need for an immediate and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Palestine.
