Israel on Thursday rejected Lebanon’s amendments to a draft agreement aimed at delineating the maritime border between the two countries and thus facilitating the exploitation of offshore gas fields, a senior Israeli official said.
“Prime Minister Yair Lapid has been informed of the significant changes Lebanon is seeking to make to the agreement and has asked his negotiating team to reject them,” a senior Israeli official told AFP
requesting anonymity.
Lebanon on Tuesday submitted its response to a U.S. proposal to settle its maritime border dispute with Israel, which should allow the two countries to move forward with the development of large gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean.
Lebanese leaders had met the day before to work out a unified response to the US proposal, the content of which was not made public, and expressed confidence that an agreement would be reached soon, echoing similar optimism in recent days on the part of the Jewish state.
The proposal of the American mediator on the demarcation of the maritime border between Lebanon and Israel “protects” and “strengthens” the interests of the Hebrew state, said Sunday the Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who, in the midst of the campaign for the parliamentary elections of November 1, is the subject of strong criticism from the opposition, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, on this draft agreement.
The latter, who seeks to return to the head of the Israeli government, accused Mr. Lapid of “giving” a “sovereign territory of Israel” to the Lebanese Hezbollah, sworn enemy of the Hebrew state.
According to Israeli officials, the agreement provides that the offshore Karish field will remain in Israel and the Qana reserves will be granted to Lebanon but that the Hebrew state will receive a portion of the gas revenues.
Israel, which did not detail on Thursday the Lebanese amendments that pose a problem for it, maintains that it will exploit the Karish deposit, even in the absence of an agreement on its maritime border with Lebanon and despite threats in this sense from Hezbollah.
“Israel will produce gas from the Karish field as soon as it is possible to do so. If Hezbollah or anyone else tries to damage Karish or threatens us, negotiations on the maritime border will cease immediately,” the senior Israeli official said, shortly before a meeting of Lapid’s security cabinet on the thorny issue.
