Biden welcomes ‘historic’ maritime boundary deal between Israel, Lebanon

President Biden on Thursday congratulated Israel and Lebanon for finalizing an agreement on a sea boundary between the two, an effort that was mediated by the United States.

Biden described the deal as “historic,” as it resolves Israeli and Lebanese claims to natural gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and “sets the stage for a more stable and prosperous region.” 

Israeli and Lebanese officials jointly took part in a signing ceremony in the Lebanese city of Naqoura, at the headquarters of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a more than four-decade-old peacekeeping mission that monitors the border between the two countries.

“I am proud to congratulate Israel and Lebanon on officially concluding their agreement to resolve their long-standing maritime boundary dispute. Today in Naqoura, Lebanon, both Parties took the final steps to bring the agreement into force and submitted the final paperwork to the United Nations in the presence of the United States,” Biden said in a statement.

“As I said when this historic agreement was announced, it will secure the interests of both Israel and Lebanon, and it sets the stage for a more stable and prosperous region. The United States will continue to serve as a facilitator as the parties work to uphold their commitments and implement this agreement.”

Biden added, “Energy—particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean—should not be a cause for conflict, but a tool for cooperation, stability, security, and prosperity. This agreement takes us one step closer to realizing a vision for a Middle East that is more secure, integrated, and prosperous, delivering benefits for all the people of the region.”

The signing was overseen in Naqoura by Biden’s special envoy for energy security, Amos Hochstein, who earlier traveled to Beirut as Lebanese President Michel Aoun signed the text of the agreement provided by the U.S. Hochstein will next travel to Jerusalem to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who had signed the agreement earlier on Thursday.

The maritime boundary deal is nearly 10 years in the making; it began under the Obama administration, was restarted in the Trump administration and finalized in the Biden administration. It draws a boundary in territorial sea waters between Israel and Lebanon and gives each country claims to separate gas fields — Karish for Israel and Qana for Lebanon.  

Supporters of the deal say that Lebanon’s move to sign an agreement with Israel is a monumental shift for the country, providing de facto recognition of Israel as a sovereign state that Beirut has long refused to acknowledge. The two sides technically remain at war, although Israel views as a greater threat the Iranian-backed political and military group Hezbollah, which controls Lebanon’s southern border and reportedly maintains nearly 150,000 rockets aimed at Israel.

While Hezbollah threatened violence against Israel amid the negotiations with Lebanon over the maritime boundary, the group, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization, gave its blessing for the agreement to proceed.

Lapid in a statement said that the agreement “strengthens Israel’s security and our freedom of action against Hezbollah and the threats to our north.”

The Israeli prime minister continued that the agreement is a “diplomatic achievement. It is not every day that an enemy country recognizes the State of Israel, in a written agreement, in view of the international community,” and added that the U.S. and France provided security and economic guarantees as part of the agreement.

Lebanon’s Aoun, in a statement from his office, said that the signing of the agreement “is a technical work that does not have any political dimensions or effects that contradict the foreign policy pursued by Lebanon in its relations with countries,” according to a translation from Arabic.

Elias Bou Saab, the deputy speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, said the U.S. mediation efforts “presented a new approach that enabled us to conclude this historic agreement.

“You take one side with one side against the other, contribute to reaching what we have reached today. A long time ago I heard about the Abraham Agreement, and today I think that there is a new stage, which may be titled the Amos Hochstein Agreement,” he said, according to the readout, referring to the normalization agreements struck by the Trump administration that established ties between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.