Le Liban est déterminé à régler le différend sur le gaz offshore avec Israël timesofisrael.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from timesofisrael.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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.