Guterres urges Lebanon and Israel to resume maritime border demarcation talks and points to continued ceasefire violations

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has urged Israel and Lebanon to resume talks on their maritime and land borders.

Guterres expressed the readiness of the United Nations to provide a helping hand if the parties requested it.

This came during the UN Security Council session to discuss the implementation of Security Council Resolution No. 1701 of 2006, which stipulates the cessation of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.

In a report discussed by the Security Council during a closed session, the Secretary-General of the United Nations affirmed his support for the Lebanese government's request to extend the mandate of the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon. Guterres also called on the Lebanese parties to expedite the formation of a government that implements reforms and responds to the aspirations of the Lebanese.

The Security Council session coincides with an escalation of tension against the backdrop of negotiations to demarcate the maritime border between Lebanon and Israel. On July 13, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah warned that if Lebanon was prevented from extracting gas and oil, no one would be able to extract or sell gas and oil.

A few days ago, Nasrallah's statement was preceded by Hezbollah's announcement that it had launched 3 unarmed marches towards the disputed area at the Karish field to carry out reconnaissance missions;

He said the mission had been accomplished and the message had been delivered.

In mid-June, the US mediator in charge of negotiations to demarcate the maritime borders between Lebanon and Israel, Amos Hochstein, received an oral response in Beirut to the proposal to demarcate the maritime borders.

On the same day, Lebanese President Michel Aoun announced his country's refusal to waive its rights to its oil wealth, and indicated that Lebanon was under pressure to prevent it from investing its oil wealth, and stressed the need to move indirect technical negotiations between Lebanon and Israel through the American mediator.

Prior to that, on the fifth of last June, the Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati described Israel's attempts to infringe on Lebanon's water wealth and impose a fait accompli in a disputed region as a matter of extreme danger.

Mikati's statement came on the same day, which witnessed a Lebanese rejection and warning, following the entry of an Israeli drilling ship into the disputed Karish field.