"If there are reserves of oil under the occupied territories, then absolutely Israel must talk to the Palestinian Authority about any exploration being undertaken to extract them," he said.
The expectation of a dramatic increase in future profits for Israel from drilling at Meged 5 comes shortly after the World Bank issued a report arguing that Israel was destroying any hope that a future Palestinian state could be economically viable.
Israeli "chokehold" of Area C
According to the World Bank, Israel's occupation is preventing the Palestinians from exploiting key natural resources, either by plundering them for itself or by making them inaccessible to Palestinians through movement restrictions and classifying areas as military zones.
The World Bank report did not include the Meged oil field among the Palestinian natural resources it listed. A spokeswoman said there had not been enough data available for its researchers to assess the significance of the oil field.
In the report, the World Bank focuses on a large area of the West Bank designated as Area C in the Oslo Accords, which continues to be under Israel's full control and where Israel has built more than 200 settlements.
Area C, comprising nearly two-thirds of West Bank territory, includes most of the Palestinians' major resources, including land for agriculture and development, water aquifers, Dead Sea minerals, quarries, and archaeological and tourism sites. It is also where much of the Meged reserves are likely to be located.
Israel's energy and water ministry is led by Silvan Shalom, a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a supporter of Israel's settlement programme in the West Bank.
Naftali Bennett, who is the trade and industry minister and the leader of the pro-settler Jewish Home party, has repeatedly called for Israel's formal annexation of Area C.
According to the Bank's research, the Palestinian Authority could generate at least $3.4bn in extra income a year if given full control of Area C - though that figure does not take account of the expected boom in oil revenues.
The World Bank spokeswoman said the figure was "very conservative" as there were some resources, such as the oil field, for which its researchers had not been able to collect data.
Nonetheless, even the income from resources identified by the World Bank would increase the PA's GDP by a third, reducing a ballooning deficit, cutting unemployment rates that have reached 23 percent, easing poverty and food insecurity and helping the fledgling state break free of aid dependency.
But none of this could be achieved, said the Bank, as long as Israel maintains its chokehold on Area C -- or what the Bank calls "restricted land."
Mariam Sherman, the World Bank's director in the West Bank and Gaza, said: "Unleashing the potential from that 'restricted land' ... and allowing Palestinians to put these resources to work would provide whole new areas of economic activity and set the economy on the path to sustainable growth."
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, revived peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians this summer after promising the PA that it would help raise $4bn to invest in the Palestinian economy, much of it directed at projects in Area C.
However, the World Bank report suggests that Israeli movement restrictions in Area C and its refusal to issue development permits make ventures there too risky for Palestinian investors.
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