Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah during a speech on al-Manar TV on July 13.
Hezbollah will not allow Israel to extract and sell gas and oil from any naval field if Lebanon was not allowed to do the same with its maritime resources, the group’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said on July 13.
In a televised speech meant to commemorate the war of 2006, Nasrallah said that Hezbollah is monitoring all Israeli naval gas and oil field, adding that the group’s military force may resort to its ground, maritime or air capabilities in order to attack these fields and secure Lebanon’s rights.
According to the leader, the new military equation for Hezbollah is “Karish, what’s beyond Karish and what’s far beyond Karish”.
Karish naval gas field recently became the focal point of the Lebanese-Israeli maritime dispute. Lebanon claims that at least a part of the field is within its exclusive economic zone. In spite of this, the Greek-owned Energean Power FPSO [Floating Production Storage Offloading] reached the field in June to extract gas for Israel.
US-backed indirect negations on the demarcation of the naval borders between Lebanon and Israel saw some progress recently. Lebanon has reportedly agreed to drop claims on Karish likely in exchange for Israeli concessions on other parts of the disputed naval zone.
“Hezbollah will do whatever serves the negotiations in accordance to length and timing,” Nasrallah said during his speech. “The maritime border demarcation is momentous and is the sole way to save Lebanon and its people. It is not a psychological warfare”.
Nasrallah called on the Lebanese government to benefit from Hezbollah power in order to secure the national rights in the negotiations with the US mediator and prevent Israel from deceiving them.
Nasrallah explained that, in September, the Israeli enemy will start extracting gas and oil from Karish, “which will make it so hard for Lebanon to restore its rights”.
“If you do not prove your rights before September, things will be costly after this deadline.” Nasrallah said.
In a very recent interview, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib predicted that his country could reach an agreement on maritime border with Israel before September.
Addressing the recent drone incident near Karish, Nasrallah pointed out that the Resistance flew three unarmed drones towards the gas field to be downed by Israel forces because it wanted to make the companies operating in the disputed field know that they are in a war zone. The leader said that this was the first act by Hezbollah and would be followed by escalating acts that guarantee the Lebanese rights.
Nasrallah responded to the claims that flying the drones violated an agreement with the US by stressing that Hezbollah has never promised anyone to avoid military acts to protect Lebanon resources.
“It was the first time that three drones were flown in the Zionist airspace simultaneously. We have the ability to launch armed drones with larger numbers and various sizes,” the leader said.
All on all it appears that Hezbollah is determined to prevent Israel from exploiting Lebanon’s maritime resources. Nasrallah is well aware that the Israeli desire to exploit the disputed maritime zone right now is fueled by the US and Europe’s need for gas amid the Ukrainian conflict.
Hezbollah will not likely step back. The group’s strict stand could force Israel to reach a maritime agreement with Lebanon before extracting gas from Karish in September.
Karish is right on the very edge of Israel’s claim. Karish is physically closer to Lebanese territory in a straight line.
Israel’s economy is more than 10x bigger than Lebanon’s, on a per-capita basis, according to the World Bank (GDP/capita, Nominal). They are taking advantage of dysfunction in Lebanon to horde more for themselves.
Does anyone need any more proof that the Jews are greedy thieves who are never satisfied? Only a bloodied nose can keep them away from gold, even if surrounded by much poorer people!
Jews owned Karish 6 million years ago. If you deny this – you deny the Holocaust, you anti-semite!
I want to be an anti-semite too.
LOL.. Sadly, thats how jews think as well :)
The only judaists living in Palestine are the semites living in coordinance whit the Palestinians. The zionist parasites are not judaists, they are aske nazi and kazzarnazis. Free Palestine !!
The presence of oil and gas in significant volume at the disputed maritime area would be an ominous sign that will draw both Lebanon and Israel into another bloody war with strong likelihood of dragging the major powers of the region in such conflict. Judging from the past, Israel had forcibly grabbed and illegally occupied large chunks of land belonging to its neighbours, and the case of Karish won’t be different from the perspective of the chosenites.
And this is why Nasrallah and Hezbollah remain popular in Lebanon despite all of our attempts to punish the Lebanese. Contrary to what the U.S. / Israel say, Nasrallah is not an Iranian proxy. He is a pragmatic, Lebanese nationalist.
He is saying, ‘let Lebanon have access to their energy resources and we will leave you alone’.
Israel needs to send merkava tanks battalions into Lebanon. The last time they did that was sooo successful…
Israel is ass-hole of US.
The jews will have to pay a lot of drilling insurance now after the warning from Hezbollah. LOL
Why even involve the US which naturally works in the best interest of the jews. If Lebanon doesn’t grow a backbone soon and weans itself off the US she will implode and only have herself to blame. Golan Heights comes to mind and compares to Lebanese loss of territory. Hezbollah should just do what is required and not worry about what the government officials say or do since most of them are paid traitors working for the US, SA or other western interests.