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.
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A UNIFIL Navy ship patrols in the Mediterranean Sea next to a base of the UN peacekeeping force, off the southern town of Naqoura, Lebanon, May 4, 2021. (Hussein Malla/AP)
After a nearly six-month pause, Lebanon and Israel on Tuesday resumed indirect talks with US mediation over their disputed maritime border.
The resumption comes after the new Biden administration took over in Washington at the beginning of the year. Lebanon has sunk deeper into an economic and financial crisis that started in late 2019 a culmination of decades of corruption and mismanagement by the political class.
The small Mediterranean country is eager to resolve the border dispute with Israel, paving the way for potential lucrative oil and gas deals.
A helicopter flies over a base of the UN peacekeeping force, in the town of Naqoura, Lebanon, October 14, 2020, during the first round of talks between Lebanese and Israeli delegations on the countries maritime border. (AP/Bilal Hussein)
Israel and Lebanon will renew talks next week about their disputed maritime border after the negotiations had broken down, according to a report Thursday by the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Akhbar newspaper.
The US-mediated talks are set to resume Monday, for the first time under US President Joe Biden, following the previous round in November.
According to the report, the US envoy to Lebanon has updated Lebanese army chief Joseph Aoun of the decision. Lebanese President Michel Aoun will meet the military delegation to coordinate the country’s position ahead of the talks.