The Tamar offshore natural gas platform. (Delek Drilling)
Chevron shuts down and depressurizes the Tamar natural gas platform off Israel’s coast in accordance with instructions received from the Energy Ministry, a company spokeswoman tells the Reuters news agency.
In a statement to the Times of Israel, the ministry says there is “no connection” between the decision by Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz to shut the rig and the “completely untrue” reports of attempts to attack it. I m proud to work at The Times of Israel
I’ll tell you the truth: Life here in Israel isn’t always easy. But it s full of beauty and meaning.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday urged Israel and the Palestinians to halt fighting in a call with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said the world needs to give Israel a strong lesson. Serious concern was expressed about the continuing clashes and the growing number of people killed and wounded, the Kremlin said in a statement adding that Putin had called on the parties to de-escalate tensions and peacefully resolve the emerging issues .
The Israeli army has launched hundreds of air strikes on the Gaza Strip since Monday, where Hamas and other militants have responded by firing back volleys of rockets on Israeli cities.
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel s diplomatic reporter
Signs shows the distances of Beirut and Jerusalem, that set at a road that links to a UNIFIL base where the Lebanese and Israeli delegations meet, in Naqoura, Lebanon, Tuesday, May 4, 2021. (AP/Hussein Malla)
Looking out from the limestone cliffs of Rosh Hanikra, the tiny “island” of Tekheilet is barely visible, a rocky outcropping just barely kissing the waveline a kilometer from Israel’s shoreline at the country’s northern frontier.
In November 2020, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, his chief of staff Mor Halutz and ministry director-general Udi Adiri donned bright orange lifejackets and clambered onto the islet for a spot of tea and a show of Israel’s claim not only to the island but to the expanse of sea stretching far beyond.
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel s diplomatic reporter
View of the Israeli Leviathan gas field gas processing rig as it seen from Dor Habonim Beach Nature Reserve, on January 1, 2020. (Flash90)
Israeli and Lebanese negotiators engaged in US-mediated indirect talks over their disputed maritime for six hours on Tuesday.
The talks were the first since discussions were broken off in October 2020.
US diplomat John Desrocher, who serves as the American mediator, asked that both parties negotiate based on their original proposals filed to the United Nations in 2011, according to Lebanese daily L’Orient Today.
Lebanon has since submitted much more aggressive maritime claims. In the lead up to this round of talks, the Lebanese delegation a mix of army officers and experts offered a new map that pushes for an additional 1,430 square kilometers (550 square miles) for Lebanon.
Israel and Lebanon Resume Maritime Border Talks
US-brokered meeting over decades-old Mediterranean dispute a ‘positive step,’ State Department says.
(The Media Line) Israel and Lebanon resumed stalled talks over their disputed maritime border, looking to finally resolve a decades-old conflict involving potentially billions of dollars in gas exploration rights.
The third round of negotiations was kicked off on Tuesday in a United Nations facility in the southern Lebanese coastal town of Naqoura, and are brokered by United States officials.
“After about a six-month break, six hours of discussions were held today,” a spokesman for Israel’s Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz told The Media Line. “The minister was updated by the delegation and consulted with its members about the next steps in the process.”