What the new Lebanon-Israel maritime border deal means for everyone

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A picture taken on August 5, 2021, from the northern Israeli town of Metula near the border with Lebanon, shows Lebanon and Israel flags. (AFP)
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The Israeli navy was deployed in June as tensions flared in Lebanon and Israel’s maritime dispute when an Israeli drilling rig entered disputed waters. (AFP)
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Lebanon's officials led by President Michel Aoun (C) meeting with US envoy Amos Hochstein (5th L) and his team at the presidential palace in Baabda on Aug. 1, 2022. (Dalati & Nohra via AFP)
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Updated 14 October 2022
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What the new Lebanon-Israel maritime border deal means for everyone

  • US-mediated talks over the disputed maritime border dragged on for more than a decade  
  • The contention centered around access to key gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean

LONDON: Ten years after the US began its mediation efforts, Lebanon and Israel have finally reached an agreement delineating their maritime border in what pundits are describing as a “historic” moment. However, some observers are taking a more cautious view.

“It’s at least 10 years overdue,” said Ambassador Frederic Hof, a former director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, who served as US mediator in 2012 under President Barack Obama.

“We need to be cautious at this point. There is still an elongated ratification process in Israel. There is a question of whether, after the Nov. 1 elections, the deal would be sustained if there’s a change in government,” he told Arab News.




A platform of the Leviathan natural gas field in the Mediterranean Sea as seen from the Israeli northern coastal beach of Nasholim. (AFP)

“On the Lebanese side, there are a couple of questions. The obvious question is: Are there indeed marketable natural gas deposits under Lebanese waters? And, given the fact that there will not likely be any revenues for five years, will the Lebanese political system undergo some changes that would enable the Lebanese people to benefit from all of this?”

The dispute goes back to 2012, when the two countries failed to reach an agreement over the location of their shared maritime border. Israel initially pushed for Line 1 (see map), while Lebanon favored Line 29. 

Hof, who was the first US mediator appointed to the process, proposed a line that lay closer to the Israelis’ preferred option. In the end, however, the border that was agreed is Line 23, which is closer to Lebanon’s preferred boundary.

At the heart of the dispute are two offshore natural gas fields: the untapped Qana field in Lebanon’s territorial waters and the Karish field in Israeli territory. The contested claims to the resources escalated in July when Hezbollah, the Lebanese Iran-backed militia, launched a drone attack on the Karish field. Israeli air defenses managed to shoot down all three drones before they reached their target. It is hoped this week’s border agreement will stave off similar incidents.

According to leaked details of the deal, revenues from gas extracted from the Qana field will be split between Lebanon and French energy company Total, and 17 percent of Total’s revenues will go to Israel. Israel will continue to have exclusive rights to the Karish field.




United Nations peacekeeping force vehicles patrol in Naqura, south of the Lebanese city of Tyre, on the border with Israel on June 6, 2022. (AFP)

Although the deal settles the maritime border issue, it does not affect the yet-to-be recognized land border between the two countries, the so-called Blue Line that was demarcated in 2000 and is supervised by the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.

Reflecting on why a maritime border agreement could not be reached 10 years ago when the process began, Hof said the then government of Najib Mikati — who now serves as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister — had already started to “steadily fall apart.”

He added: “Now, the decision-making process seems to be in the hands of the three presidents in Lebanon (the president, prime minister and speaker of parliament) and unless things change, which I don’t think they will, all three seem to agree that Lebanon did well in this mediation.”




Lebanese President Michel Aoun (R) meeting with US envoy Amos Hochstein and US Ambassador Dorothy Shea (L) at the Presidential Palace in Baabda on June 14, 2022 . (Dalati & Nohra photo via AFP)

Others, such as Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Levant analyst for Tablet Magazine told Arab News that “what changed now is that the Biden administration abandoned the earlier framework of dividing the disputed area along a 55:45 ratio, and managed to press a pliant lame duck government to concede to 100 per cent of Hezbollah's demands.”

US officials also view the maritime deal, mediated by Amos Hochstein, the Biden administration’s senior advisor for energy security, as a diplomatic win that will ultimately improve overall security and stability in the region.

“At the end of the day, the US was able to mediate a deal between Lebanon and Israel — two enemy countries — to get into a maritime border deal that they think would stabilize the situation between both countries and make it harder for them to go to war,” Laury Haytayan, the Middle East and North Africa director at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, told Arab News.

Indeed, she believes that Israel, which already enjoys sufficient energy supplies, correctly identified the security benefits offered by a deal that favored Lebanon’s territorial claims over Israeli economic self-interest.

“If Lebanon is stable, and Lebanon focuses on its economy, they think that they will be less interested in war” and, in turn, less dependent on Hezbollah and Iran, Haytayan added.

Officials in Beirut likely had other concerns in mind, however. As Lebanon faces economic catastrophe, the caretaker government is eager to show it is playing ball with the international community’s demands for reforms in exchange for assistance.




Supporters of Lebanon's Hezbollah react as the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah addresses them through a giant screen on August 9, 2022. (AFP)

Haytayan said Lebanon’s primary aim was to place “a card in the hands of the political class to use to talk to the international community and to talk to the Americans for the first time, so that the Americans will not continue with the sanctions.”

Since Lebanon’s economic collapse in 2019, which was compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and the devastating explosion at Beirut’s port in August, 2020, the US has put sustained pressure on the Lebanese government to address a culture of rampant corruption.

Among those placed under sanctions by the US is President Michel Aoun’s son-in-law, Gebran Bassil, who is a former foreign minister and the current head of the Free Patriotic Movement.




Gebran Bassil, the current head of Lebanon's Free Patriotic Movement. (AFP)

Because of the reputation of the Lebanese elite for lining their own pockets at the expense of the public purse, citizens cannot help but feel pessimistic about the prospect of any oil revenues that result from the border deal being put to good use.

“I think the threat to revenues not being used for the benefit of the Lebanese people, and for the rebuilding of Lebanon, comes from the existence of a totally corrupt and totally incompetent political class in Lebanon, which enjoys the support and protection of Hezbollah,” said Hof.

Although it will be at least five years before Lebanon sees any financial return on gas explorations, there are several indirect, short-term gains on offer, said Haytayan.

A public commitment given by Total that it will begin drilling operations in the Qana field could help to convince more businesses to invest in Lebanon, which would give the Lebanese government additional “cards to play with negotiators, with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the international community, the US and Europeans,” said Haytayan. “This would ease the pressure for reform that has been put on them for three-and-a-half years.”




Total Energies has committed to begin drilling operations in the Qana field once Israel and Lebanon settle their maritime border dispute. (AFP file)

US President Joe Biden called his Lebanese counterpart, Aoun, to congratulate Lebanon on the maritime deal.

“Everybody is happy that Lebanon has done this deal with Israel, so there is political energy injected into the survival (of Lebanon’s political class),” Haytayan said.

The maritime border deal is no doubt a major step forward. However, Hof doubts it will lead to any normalization of relations between Israel and Lebanon in the near future. Instead, he views the coming years as a test of the willingness of Lebanese politics for reform and of the elite’s readiness to put the needs of the public ahead of their own.

“Five years is the estimate one most often sees (for gas exploration),” said Hof. “This gives the Lebanese people five years to do their best to create a system reflecting rule of law, accountability, transparency, and to build a Lebanese state that is capable of using these God-given resources for the benefit of the Lebanese people.”

As for Badra, he explained that the deal lead Hezbollah to “emerge clearly as the Biden administration’s, and France’s, primary interlocutor in Lebanon -- a recognition that it is the only party that matters in, and that dominates, Lebanon."

“The Biden administration not only assisted Hezbollah’s optics of coercing Israel to concede under fire, but also, the deal itself cements France's partnership with Hezbollah, along with other potential foreign investments.”

 


Turkiye replaces pro-Kurdish mayors with state officials in two eastern cities

Updated 23 November 2024
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Turkiye replaces pro-Kurdish mayors with state officials in two eastern cities

ANKARA: Turkiye stripped two elected pro-Kurdish mayors of their posts in eastern cities on Friday, for convictions on terrorism-related offenses, the interior ministry said, temporarily appointing state officials in their places instead.
The local governor replaced mayor Cevdet Konak in Tunceli, while a local administrator was appointed in the place of Ovacik mayor Mustafa Sarigul, the ministry said in a statement, adding these were “temporary measures.”
Konak is a member of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, which has 57 seats in the national parliament, and Sarigul is a member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). Dozens of pro-Kurdish mayors from its predecessor parties have been removed from their posts on similar charges in the past.
CHP leader Ozgur Ozel said authorities had deemed that Sarigul’s attendance at a funeral was a crime and called the move to appoint a trustee “a theft of the national will,” adding his party would stand against the “injustice.”
“Removing a mayor who has been elected by the votes of the people for two terms over a funeral he attended 12 years ago has no more jurisdiction than the last struggles of a government on its way out,” Ozel said on X.
Earlier this month, Turkiye replaced three pro-Kurdish mayors in southeastern cities over similar terrorism-related reasons, drawing backlash from the DEM Party and others.
Last month, a mayor from the CHP was arrested after prosecutors accused him of belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), banned as a terrorist group in Turkiye and deemed a terrorist group by the European Union and United States.
The appointment of government trustees followed a surprise proposal by President Tayyip Erdogan’s main ally last month to end the state’s 40-year conflict with the PKK.


Gaza civil defense says 19 killed in Israeli strikes

Updated 23 November 2024
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Gaza civil defense says 19 killed in Israeli strikes

  • More than 40 others wounded in three massacres caused by Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip

Gaza City: Gaza’s civil defense agency said that 19 people, some of them children, were killed in Israeli air strikes and tank fire on Saturday.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that “19 people were killed and more than 40 others wounded in three massacres caused by Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip between midnight and this morning,” as well as by tank fire in Rafah in the territory’s south.


11 dead as powerful Israeli airstrike shakes central Beirut

Updated 31 min 37 sec ago
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11 dead as powerful Israeli airstrike shakes central Beirut

  • Attack destroyed an eight-story building and caused a large number of fatalities and injuries

BEIRUT: A powerful airstrike killed 11 people in central Beirut on Saturday, the Lebanese civil defense said, shaking the capital as Israel pressed its offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

The attack destroyed an eight-story building and caused a large number of fatalities and injuries, Lebanon’s National News Agency said. Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al-Jadeed station showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.

Israel used bunker buster bombs in the strike, leaving a deep crater, the agency said. Beirut smelled strongly of explosives hours after the attack.

The blasts shook the capital at around 4 a.m. (0200 GMT). Security sources said at least four bombs were dropped in the attack.

It marked the fourth Israeli airstrike this week targeting a central area of Beirut, in contrast to the bulk of Israel’s attacks on the capital region, which have hit the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs. On Sunday an Israeli airstrike killed a Hezbollah media official in the Ras Al-Nabaa district of central Beirut.

Rescuers searched through rubble, in an area of the city known for its antique shops.

HOSPITALIZED DAUGHTER

A man whose family was hurt tried to comfort a traumatized woman outside a hospital. Car windows were shattered.

“There was dust and wrecked houses, people running and screaming, they were running, my wife is in hospital, my daughter is in hospital, my aunt is in the hospital,” said the man, Nemir Zakariya, who held up a picture of his daughter.

“This is the little one, and my son also got hurt – this is my daughter, she is in the American University (of Beirut Medical Center), this is what happened.”

Israel launched a major offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon in September, following nearly a year of cross-border hostilities ignited by the Gaza war, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.

Israeli strikes killed at least 62 people and injured 111 in Lebanon on Thursday, bringing the toll since October 2023 to 3,645 dead and 15,355 injured, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Hezbollah and the Lebanese government accuse Israel of indiscriminate bombing that kills civilians. Israel denies the allegation and says it takes numerous steps to avoid the deaths of civilians.

Hezbollah strikes in the same period have killed more than 100 people in northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. They include more than 70 soldiers killed in strikes in northern Israel and the Golan Heights and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israel.

The conflict began when Hezbollah, Tehran’s most important ally in the region, opened fire in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas after it launched the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.

A US mediator traveled to Lebanon and Israel this week in an effort to secure a ceasefire. The envoy, Amos Hochstein, indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz.


Orchestra conductor mourns childhood home’s destruction in Israel’s southern Lebanon offensive

Updated 23 November 2024
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Orchestra conductor mourns childhood home’s destruction in Israel’s southern Lebanon offensive

  • Destruction of Lubnan Baalbaki’s childhood home in October came during Israel’s offensive in Lebanon
  • Baalbaki’s family home in Odaisseh, designed by his late father, held more than just personal memories

BEIRUT: Lubnan Baalbaki, the conductor of the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra, watched on his phone screen as an aerial camera pointed to a village in southern Lebanon. In seconds, multiple houses erupted into rubble, smoke filling the air. The camera panned right, revealing widespread devastation.
He zoomed in to confirm his fears: His family’s house in the border village of Odaisseh, where his parents are buried, was now in ruins.
“To see your house getting bombed and in a split second turned into ash, I don’t think there is description for it,” Baalbaki said.
The destruction of his childhood home in October came during Israel’s offensive in Lebanon. The aim, Israel says, is to debilitate the Hezbollah militant group, push it away from the border and end more than a year of Hezbollah fire into northern Israel.
The Israeli military has released videos of controlled detonations in areas along the border, saying it is targeting Hezbollah facilities and weapons.
But the bombardment has also wiped out entire residential neighborhoods or even villages. The World Bank in a recent report said over 99,000 housing units have been “fully or partially damaged” by the war in Lebanon.
Baalbaki’s family home in Odaisseh, designed by his late father, renowned Lebanese painter Abdel Hamid Baalbaki, held more than just personal memories. It held a collection of Abdel Hamid’s paintings, his art workshop and over 1,500 books. All were destroyed along with the house.
What cut even deeper, Baalbaki said, was the loss of the letters his parents exchanged during his father’s art studies in France. Only a few remain as digital photos.
“The language of passion and love they shared was filled with poetry,” Baalbaki said.
In a book of poems and photographs his father created for his wife following her sudden death in a car accident, the first page reads, “Dedication to Adeeba, the partner of my most precious days, the love bird that left its nest too soon.”
Abdel Hamid painstakingly designed his wife’s tombstone. Later, he was laid to rest beside her in the garden next to the house. For their son, watching his childhood home go up in smoke brought back the pain of losing them.
It was a moment he had feared for months.
Hezbollah began firing missiles into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Israel responded with airstrikes and shelling. For nearly a year, the conflict remained limited.
After the war dramatically escalated on Sept. 23 with intense Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs, Baalbaki and his siblings frequently checked satellite images for updates on their village.
On Oct. 26, explosions in and around Odaisseh triggered an earthquake alert in northern Israel. That day, videos circulated online, one of which showed their home being obliterated.
Until a few days before that, the satellite images showed their house still standing.
Now, Baalbaki said, he is resolved to honor his father’s dream.
“The mourning phase started to turn to determination to rebuild this project,” he said.
When the war is over, he plans to rebuild the house as an art museum and cultural center.


226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7 — WHO

Updated 23 November 2024
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226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7 — WHO

  • Over 187 attacks on healthcare workers have taken place in Lebanon over 13 months, says UN health agency
  • Fifteen of Lebanon’s 153 hospitals have ceased operating or are only partially functioning, warns WHO

GENEVA: Nearly 230 health workers have been killed in Lebanon since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza following the Oct. 7 attacks last year, the World Health Organization said.
In total, the UN health agency said there had been 187 attacks on health care in Lebanon in the more than 13 months of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict.
Between Oct. 7, 2023 and Nov.18 this year, “we have 226 deaths and 199 injuries in total,” Abdinasir Abubakar, the WHO representative in Lebanon, said via video link from Beirut.
He said “almost 70 percent” of these had occurred since the tensions escalated into an all-out war in September.
Saying this was “an extremely worrying pattern,” he stressed that “depriving civilians of access to lifesaving care and targeting health providers is a breach of international humanitarian law.”
Abubakar said: “A hallmark of the conflict in Lebanon is how destructive it has been to health care,” highlighting that 47 percent of these attacks “have proven fatal to at least one health worker or patient” — the highest percentage of any active conflict today.
By comparison, Abubakar said that only 13.3 percent of attacks on health care globally had fatal outcomes during the same period, pointing to data from a range of conflict situations, including Ukraine, Sudan, and the occupied Palestinian territory.
He suggested the high percentage of fatal attacks on health care in Lebanon might be because “more ambulances have been targeted.”
“And whenever the ambulance is targeted, actually, then you will have three, four or five paramedics ... killed.”
The conflict has dealt a harsh blow to overall health care in Lebanon, which was already reeling from a string of dire crises in recent years.
The WHO warned that 15 of Lebanon’s 153 hospitals have ceased operating or are only partially functioning.
Hanan Balkhy, WHO’s regional director for the eastern Mediterranean region, stressed that “attacks on health care of this scale cripple a health system when those whose lives depend on it need it the most.”
“Beyond the loss of life, the death of health workers is a loss of years of investment and a crucial resource to a fragile country going forward.”