A draught of the agreement that the United States has mediated to demarcate the maritime borders between Lebanon and Israel stated today, Wednesday, that it aspires to “find a permanent and fair solution” for the protracted war.
“This Agreement enters into force on the date the United States Government delivers a notice that includes an affirmation of the parties’ approval of the provisions outlined in this Agreement,” the draught read.
Israel and Lebanon will simultaneously provide the United Nations the exact same coordinates for the position of the maritime border on the day that Washington sends this notice.
The parties acknowledge Israel’s security line off the Roche Hanikrah settlement, as stated in the agreement’s wording.
According to the agreement, agreements between Israel and Lebanon may be re-negotiated if their countries’ shared geographical borders have not yet been addressed.
One of the provisions of the deal states that 17% of the income from the gas extraction from the reservoirs near Sidon will go to Israel.
This comes after officials said on Tuesday that Lebanon and Israel have reached a historic agreement to demarcate disputed naval borders, after years of negotiations by American mediation.
Even though the agreement is small in scale, it will be a significant resolution between the two nations—two rivals with a long history of hostility—and pave the way for exploring energy resources off the coast while easing one of the most recent points of contention between the two.
With this deal, a border conflict in the eastern Mediterranean will be resolved, in a region where Lebanon plans to mine natural gas. Israel actually extracts natural gas from nearby fields.
The agreement draws the borders between the Lebanese and Israeli waters for the first time, and it also sets a mechanism for each of the two countries to obtain returns from the exploration of Total Enemz for a gas field off the beach that extends across the border.
Since Israel and Hezbollah have fought each other frequently in recent years, the pact is not vulnerable to the countries’ territorial borders.
Despite the plaudits from Israel, Lebanon, and the United States at the conclusion of the negotiations, neither Israel nor Lebanon have yet given their final consent to the same deal.
The maritime border agreement between Israel and Lebanon specifies this.
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