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Israeli Navy Vessels to Drilling Platform in Disputed Maritime Region
The Israeli military is preparing for an attack imaginable through the Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah on the Energean fuel platform off Israel’s Mediterranean coast, Hebrew media reported Sunday.
According to state broadcaster Kan, Israeli military ships will help protect the drilling rig, which has entered a disputed maritime domain between Israel and Lebanon.
The new fuel platform arrived in Karish on Sunday and is expected to extract fuel for Israel in the coming months.
Reacting to the platform’s arrival, Lebanese President Michel Aoun warned Israel of any “aggressive action” in disputed waters where the two states hope to expand offshore power.
“Any action or activity in the disputed domain represents a provocation and a hostile act,” Aoun said.
Israel has denied the allegation that it is invading a disputed Mediterranean herbal fuel box and has downplayed any prospect of confrontation over the dispute.
Aoun agreed to invite U. S. envoy Amos Hochstein to Beirut to stall negotiations on the demarcation of its southern maritime border with Israel.
Bassam Yasin, head of the Lebanese delegation for the negotiations, said it “is in the hands of the state and Hezbollah,” Kan reported.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah organization has warned Israel that it opposes the unilateral use of herbal fuel in the disputed maritime region, according to The Times of Israel.
The Walla! Sunday’s news quoted an unnamed senior Israeli official as saying that Lebanon’s claims about “contradict positions that Lebanon itself has put forward in the past. “
Israel claims that the box in question is located in its exclusive economic zone, not in the disputed waters. A naval edition of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense systems, as well as submarines, would be the platform.
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