Lebanon's gas under threat as Israel may cancel 'maritime border demarcation'

Amid a drastic increase in Israeli military operations in Lebanon by air and land, there is chatter that Israeli government officials are signalling the cancellation of the maritime border demarcation agreement reached with Lebanese authorities in October 2022.

This scenario had previously been raised by Israeli officials, including its Energy Minister Eli Cohen himself, in late September 2024, when he expressed his intention to seek a loophole to cancel what he described as the "shameful gas agreement" signed with Lebanon.

Cohen, who has long considered the agreement a mistake, announced on Sunday that his government is studying the cancellation of the 2022 maritime border demarcation agreement with Lebanon to settle a maritime boundary dispute in a gas-rich area of the Mediterranean Sea.

He pointed out that the agreement concluded by a previous government was not a real agreement but rather a "document of surrender".

He noted that under the agreement, Lebanon obtained the entire disputed area in exchange for a vague commitment to improve Israel's security, a commitment that was never fulfilled at all.

Israel's Channel 14 reported last Thursday, 12 March, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering cancelling the maritime border demarcation agreement with Lebanon, known in the media as the "gas agreement", which was signed during the tenure of the governments of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.

The channel said the potential step is being discussed with US President Donald Trump in light of ongoing military developments in the confrontation with Hezbollah.

It added that the final decision on cancelling the agreement will depend largely on developments on the ground and will be determined through a joint understanding between Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump.

In October 2022, days before the end of former president Michel Aoun's term, Lebanon and Israel signed a maritime border demarcation agreement with US mediation.

The agreement fixes the maritime boundary at Line 23 between the two countries, with both parties agreeing to maintain the status quo along the shore, including the line of maritime buoys.

It also stipulates that neither party may in the future submit to the United Nations any memorandum containing maps or coordinates that contradict this agreement, unless both parties agree on the content of such a memorandum.

The agreement is limited to its technical aspect, without Lebanon's political recognition of Israel.

The two sides also share, with the United States, information related to any resource that crosses the currently known maritime boundaries or that may be discovered in the future. 

This includes information held by operators working on both sides of the maritime boundary.

The two parties also agreed that this agreement constitutes a permanent and fair solution to their maritime dispute. They expressed their intention to resolve any disagreements regarding its interpretation or implementation through discussions mediated by the United States. 

In reading these developments, energy researcher at the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, Mark Ayoub, told The New Arab that after the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024, and at the beginning of October of the same year, amid a fierce war waged by Israel on Lebanon, Cohen issued a statement expressing his intention to look for a way or loophole to cancel the agreement.

He said Cohen is now repeating the same statement amid the expansion of Israeli aggression on Lebanon.

Ayoub believes this position can be placed within the framework of Israeli pressure on the Lebanese state on the political level.

This comes in parallel with talk of imminent direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel.

Ayoub pointed out that Cohen's statement can be considered an exaggeration, because the party most harmed by cancelling the agreement would be Israel, not Lebanon.

He explained that Israel obtained from the agreement what it wanted: an environment of security and stability for exploration and gas production companies. This was before the launch of the "Al-Aqsa Flood" and the Israeli war on Lebanon and Gaza.

He added that under the agreement, Israel obtained full ownership of the Karish field, and gas production there officially began on 26 October 2022.

Lebanon, in turn, obtained ownership of the Qana field in Block 9.

This allowed the French company TotalEnergies to drill an exploratory well in October 2023 before leaving following Israel's launch of a war on Gaza.

However, the results were negative, and therefore, Lebanon did not actually benefit from the agreement.

"Lebanon, in the event of cancelling the agreement, can demand adopting Line 29 as a maritime boundary, which is the line it had abandoned in 2022. This would give it the entire Qana field and about half of the Karish field," Ayoud noted.

"It can be said that Israeli statements come in the context of pressure and exaggeration, especially since the agreement is international and its cancellation requires the approval of both parties," he added. "This is because it is registered with the United Nations through letters sent by both Lebanon and Israel. Israel may attempt to cancel it unilaterally, but such a step would be illegal."

Energy geopolitics expert in the Middle East and North Africa, Laury Haytayan, told The New Arab that cancelling the agreement would harm Israel more than it would harm Lebanon.

She said this is because the Lebanese energy sector is almost stalled, whereas it is active and effective in Israel. Therefore, this dynamic could be put at risk.

She explained that cancelling the agreement could be used by Hezbollah as a pretext to strike the Karish field or energy infrastructure in Israel. This could negatively affect the Israeli energy sector and threaten its future stability.

Haytayan pointed out that this is not the first time the Netanyahu government has threatened to cancel the agreement, but it has not implemented its threats so far.

However, if Israel decides actually to cancel the agreement, it must send a letter to the United Nations declaring that it no longer recognises the agreement and its coordinates.

It would also need to submit new coordinates that may revert to what is known as Israeli Line 1, thereby declaring these to be its maritime boundaries.

Under this scenario, the new line may include a large part of Lebanese Block 8 and part of Block 9.

Haytayan added that Total has abandoned Block 9, meaning there are currently no companies operating there. Therefore, cancelling the agreement would return part of it to the circle of dispute, as was the case before 2022.

The consortium of Total, QatarEnergy and Eni of Italy had signed an agreement at the beginning of 2026 to explore for gas in Block 8 with Lebanon.

This means that if Israel changes its maritime coordinates, it may send a warning to Lebanese authorities and to these companies in an attempt to prevent them from working, at least in the disputed area.

Haytayan said that, in return, if Israel abandons the agreement, Lebanon can insist on Line 23. This would return the dispute to what it was before 2022 between Lines 23 and 1 over an area of about 860 square kilometres.

Alternatively, it could escalate its demands and fix its maritime boundaries at Line 29. This would place the northern part of the Karish field within the disputed area. In this case, Lebanon can also issue a warning to Israel and to Energean, the operator of the field, that the area in which work is being carried out is disputed.

Lebanon can also send similar warnings to companies that have obtained licences in an Israeli block known as Zone I near Lebanese Block 8. It would demand a halt to any work until the dispute is resolved.

Haytayan pointed out that most of these fields are not currently active on either the Lebanese or Israeli side, except for the Karish field.

This means that Energean will not be comfortable with the possibility of a new dispute erupting over the area.

Article translated from Arabic by Afrah Almatwari. To read the original, click here.