ANTI-APARTHEID activists have targeted the offices of an Aberdeen-based company that is exploring gas fields off the coast of Gaza.

Dana Petroleum, which already has extensive operations in waters off neighbouring Egypt, was one of a host of companies granted licences to explore the gas-rich seabed off Gaza’s coast by Israel just weeks after it began bombing the strip in October 2023.

The area lies within maritime boundaries belonging to the Palestinian Authority, leaving companies who took up the licences facing accusations of war profiteering.

In a statement, Brigades Against Energy Apartheid activists, who daubed Dana Petroleum’s Huntly Street headquarters with red paint, said: “Dana Petroleum is exploring gas in the Leviathan field just a few miles off the coast of Gaza and on behalf of the genocidal state of Israel.

“This is an act of complicity, with energy theft and pillage in breach of international law. 

“The Geneva Convention prohibits the exploitation of resources of the occupied people by the occupying power.

“The genocidal shutdown of electricity in Gaza by the state of Israel has been condemned by nearly all countries of the world. 

“Yet Dana Petroleum displays utter contempt for human lives by extracting Palestinian gas which is denied to Palestinians and is directly supplied to Israel to continue their genocidal operations.”

The group added: “We demand that Dana Petroleum rescinds the contract with the Israeli state immediately.

“All companies complicit with energy apartheid in occupied Palestine will be a target. 

“Any contract with the Israeli energy sector must end now. There can be no business as usual with a genocidal state.

“Stop the genocide. End apartheid. Freedom and justice for Palestine.”

Dana Petroleum was contacted for comment.