The two countries need to delimit their border at sea to launch the exploitation of offshore gas fields.
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Diplomacy resumed its rights after a week of verbal climbing between Israel and the Shiite movement Hezbollah on the file of the maritime border. Faced with the Special Envoy of the United States for energy issues, Amos Hochstein, who came to Beirut on Monday, June 13 and Tuesday, June 14, to relaunch standby negotiations, Lebanese president, Michel Aoun, Prime Minister, Najib Mikati , and the president of the Parliament, Nabih Berri, spoke in one voice. They defended a proposal for the delimitation of the maritime border with Israel and the sharing of the fields of hydrocarbons which could be in the disputed waters of the Mediterranean. The Lebanese position comes down into one sentence: “No Karish gas for Israel without Cana Gas for Lebanon”.
The arrival of Israel, on June 5, of the Energean Power gas platform, and the prospect that the Hebrew State begins to exploit the gas field of Karish in September, gave negotiations to negotiations indirect between Lebanon and Israel. After the warnings of Beirut against any “aggressive and provocative action” of Israel in the disputed waters, Hezbollah played the bidding. “Resistance has the financial, military, security, logistical and human capacity to prevent the enemy from extracting oil and gas from the Karish field,” said his leader, Hassan Nasrallah, while calling the Lebanese authorities to Find a quick solution on this file.
Dream of a gas miracle
In response, Israel assured that the Energean Power platform “will extract [it] no gas in the disputed area”, but said it “ready to defend its strategic assets”, while the chief of the army threatened Lebanon with “unprecedented bombardments”, in the event of an attack on Hezbollah. The Hebrew State argues that the Karish field is in its exclusive economic zone (ZEE) and invokes, in support, the official claims of Lebanon, transmitted to the UN in 2011, which relate to an area of 860 square kilometers, Delimited by line 23 . A demarcation that would give Tel Aviv full rights over Karish, while Lebanon would have the majority of the Cana field.
It is on this basis that indirect negotiations had been relaunched between the two countries in October 2020, under the aegis of Washington. They were interrupted when the Lebanese delegation, made up of military and civil experts, announced its desire to claim an additional right over 1,430 square kilometers, limited by line 29, further south, giving two thirds of the Karish field in Liban. This claim has never been formalized, President Aoun having refused to amend the decree relating to the delimitation of the Lebanese ZEE to the UN. An approach intended not to jeopardize negotiations, while the country dreams of a gas miracle which would allow it to stop its economic collapse.
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