Gas conflict in the Mediterranean .. Israeli warplanes flying over a Turkish exploration ship

Al-Jazeera correspondent in Palestine reported that Israeli warplanes flew over a Turkish ship to explore for gas in the Cyprus region on Sunday noon.

According to the 12th Israeli television channel, this flight came in response to the Turkish warships expelling an Israeli research ship from the Cypriot economic waters about two weeks ago.

According to the available information, the Israeli army sent its warplanes as a very strong message to Ankara, flying for some time and then returning.

Various sources reported that Israeli spy planes had flown over the past few days in the sky over the region, which is conducting gas exploration operations in the eastern Mediterranean.

The political correspondent of the Israeli channel, Barak Rafid, explained that ships from the Turkish navy intercepted the research vessel "Bat Galim" affiliated to the "Sea Research Center", which is within the powers of the Israeli Ministry of Energy.

The correspondent quoted sources as saying that the Israeli ship was on a mission whose objectives were not revealed, as it was intercepted and expelled by the Turkish navy while it was sailing in the Cypriot territorial waters.

On the Israeli ship were researchers from Ben Gurion University in Beersheba accompanied by a Cypriot geologist who conducted a joint study with the consent of the Cypriot government, but the details and type of this study were not disclosed.

Details of the confrontation
According to Israeli officials, the Turkish navy ships approached the Israeli research vessel, and the naval officers contacted the ship's captain and began interrogating him about his activities in the area, even though he was in an area over which the Turks had no authority, as the Israeli side says.

Turkish naval officers asked the captain of the Israeli ship to leave immediately and refrain from continuing the search, and the Israeli ship was forced to stop operations and sail to another area.

What is Israel afraid of?
It should be noted that Ankara signed a few weeks ago with the Libyan government of reconciliation, an agreement defining the maritime economic borders between Libya and Turkey in the Mediterranean, which raised the ire of Greece, Cyprus and Egypt.

The Israeli channel said that the Turkish-Libyan agreement may have a significant impact on Israel, in light of the Tel Aviv plan to extend pipelines from the gas fields it uses to Cyprus and Greece and then to Italy, as Israel aims to use this pipeline to export gas to all of Europe.