Israel and Lebanon struck a US-brokered maritime border agreement overnight Thursday that opens up lucrative offshore gas fields for the neighbours that remain technically at war.
US President Joe Biden hailed the “historic” deal, which comes as Western powers clamour to open up new energy production and reduce vulnerability to supply cuts from Russia.
The agreement was signed separately by Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun in Beirut and by Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid in Jerusalem, and went into effect after the papers were delivered to mediators.
“Both parties took the final steps to bring the agreement into force and submitted the final paperwork to the United Nations in the presence of the United States,” Mr Biden said.
Israel’s arch foe, the Lebanese Hezbollah group, said it would end its “exceptional” mobilisation against the country, after threatening to attack Israel for months should it reach for offshore gas reserves at the border before the deal was signed.
“Our mission is complete,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech.
UN chief Antonio Guterres said he “strongly” believed the deal can promote stability in the region and create “enhanced prosperity for the Lebanese and Israeli peoples”.
The deal comes as Lebanon hopes to extract itself from what the World Bank calls one of the world’s worst economic crises in modern history, and as Mr Lapid seeks to lock in a major achievement days ahead of a general election on Tuesday.
Read the article by Mahmoud Zayyat in The Australian.