Maritime Borders Lebanese Negotiations Rise to Escalation

12 years of meditation between Lebanon and Israel to demarcate the maritime borders, but recently the negotiations took a wild turn after the Israeli chief of staff Aviv Kochavi threaten the Lebanese officials.

Kochavi stated that there will be an overwhelming force in Lebanon during the next potential war.

Israel pointed out targets in Lebanon in case of a war like Hezbollah quarters and pointed out that they will “advise” the residents to leave the areas before being wrecked.

Also read: Israel threats Palestinian water sources

Kochavi’s threats came after escalation from the Lebanese side by claiming line 29 and Karish and the famous speech of Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah.

A history of negotiations

After the launch of the first round of indirect negotiations between Lebanon and Israel to demarcate the Maritime borders in 2020.

Many considered the decision to negotiate indirectly with the enemy a moment of unprecedented Lebanese political weakness, while others said that these negotiations are necessary to claim the Lebanese border rights.

Senior US Adviser on Global Energy Security Amos Hochstein has been appointed to mediate the negotiations between Lebanon and Israel.

The administration of US president Joe Biden announced to help Lebanon and Israel find a mutually acceptable solution regarding their common maritime borders for the benefit of the two countries.

However, Amos’s nationality aroused widespread controversy, as he holds Israeli citizenship, and many considered the negotiations with the mediator to be normalization with the enemy.

Hezbollah threats to Israel: there will be no prospecting

The Secretary-General of Hezbollah announced to confront the entitlement to preserve Lebanon’s rights at sea, considering that the task is parallel to the task of liberating the land, and threatening the enemy and those cooperating with it from foreign companies from the dangers of violating or attacking Lebanon’s rights.

He described the extraction of oil from Karish as “aggression”, and he called out the Greek company to withdraw and link exploration on the part of the enemy to establishing Lebanon’s right to explore.

Nasrallah called on the Lebanese state, to assume responsibility, overcome differences and agree on a unified framework, stressing that the resistance will support this position with all its capabilities.

The speech of the Secretary-General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah was brief, and the talk was devoted to the file of demarcating the maritime borders and the enemy’s start to extract oil and gas, after “the ship was positioned close to the Karish field located on line 29, i.e. the disputed area between Lebanon and the usurping entity”.

The final word was that “the resistance will not stand idly by and all options are open”, likening this issue to “liberating the border strip”, but rather more important than it.

Nasrallah considered that “what happened during the past days is an attack on Lebanon and a provocation and will turn into a major national issue”.

Israel sees the threat serious

Before the speech of the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, the leaders of the enemy were not showing seriousness in reading the statements of Lebanese officials about the arrival of the Greek-

British gas extraction vessel “Energean” to the Karish field located in the maritime space between southern Lebanon and northern occupied Palestine.

But as soon as Nasrallah’s speech ended, the scene in the entity began to change, as warnings of the serious threats escalated, while the enemy army resorted to taking precautionary field measures, in anticipation of a sudden attack.

Analysts in the entity distributed two opinions regarding the issue.
The first believes that “Hezbollah is not about to enter into a wide confrontation with Israel because of the gas, and that is why it has referred the maritime border negotiations to the Lebanese state,

” which indicates that the resistance in Lebanon has entered “a state of anticipation, and nothing will happen now,” due to several factors,

the most important of which is the deteriorating economic conditions in Lebanon, the tense regional situation, and the Vienna nuclear negotiations, which are not lacking in “sabotage” factors.
Meanwhile, the official Lebanese state threats do not cause concern in the Israeli security establishment.

“Change MPs” organize a sit-down at maritime borders!

Newly elected representatives announced Today, in the demand for Line 29, even though their electoral campaigns did not mention it, their discourse regarding the demarcation takes precedence over all the political forces in Lebanon,

and they are almost demanding the intervention of the resistance to extract the Lebanese maritime rights, were it not for the fact that this demand would contradict the clichés of “weapon” on which they built their election campaigns.

A statement was issued by the Alliance of Representatives for Change, which said:

We stand here in Naqoura on the Lebanese-Palestinian border, to say out loud to the whole world,

that we adhere to our southern maritime borders following the 29th line;

This is a legitimate legal line that is proven by international documents and laws devoted to international norms and good faith,

especially the provisions of Articles 74 and 83 of the Law of the Sea Convention.

Also read: Arab Uprising with Palestine against Israeli Violations

We as representatives of the Lebanese people and the nation as a whole, do not accept in any way our marine wealth owned by all citizens alike.