Israel, Lebanon to sign maritime deal on Thursday

Israel and Lebanon will sign a US-brokered agreement on their maritime border demarcation on Thursday, US mediator Amos Hochstein said, Anadolu News Agency reports.

“We’re going to have a deal,” Hochstein told CNN’s “Face the Nation” program. “We’re going to sign it hopefully this Thursday.”

According to Lebanese newspaper, Al-Akhbar, the signing ceremony is set to take place in the Lebanese town of Naqoura, with delegations from Israel and Lebanon signing the deal in separate rooms.

Once the agreement is inked, the two countries will send letters to the United Nations laying out the terms of the deal.

On Sunday, Israel’s High Court rejected petitions seeking annulment of the maritime deal with Lebanon, paving the way for the agreement to be approved.

There was no Lebanese confirmation of signing the deal on Thursday.

Timeline: At war for decades, Lebanon and Israel edge towards a rare deal

Lebanon and Israel have been locked in a dispute over a maritime area of 860 square kilometres (332 square miles) rich in gas and oil, according to maps sent by both countries to the UN in 2011.

Negotiations over the territory in the Mediterranean Sea, which contain part of the Karish gas field and Qana, a prospective gas field, have been ongoing since 2020.

READ: Lebanon Progressive Socialist Party: maritime border deal does not mean normalising relations with Israel