US Envoy in Lebanon Next Week with Maritime Deal to Sign

UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL) vehicles drive in Naqoura, near the Lebanese-Israeli border, southern Lebanon, October 6, 2022. REUTERS/Aziz Taher
UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL) vehicles drive in Naqoura, near the Lebanese-Israeli border, southern Lebanon, October 6, 2022. REUTERS/Aziz Taher
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US Envoy in Lebanon Next Week with Maritime Deal to Sign

UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL) vehicles drive in Naqoura, near the Lebanese-Israeli border, southern Lebanon, October 6, 2022. REUTERS/Aziz Taher
UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL) vehicles drive in Naqoura, near the Lebanese-Israeli border, southern Lebanon, October 6, 2022. REUTERS/Aziz Taher

US energy envoy Amos Hochstein will be in Beirut next week carrying a copy of the maritime agreement with Israel for Lebanese officials to sign, Lebanese negotiator Elias Bou Saab told Reuters on Wednesday.

"Hochstein will be in Beirut next week with the agreement that we will sign," Bou Saab said. He did not say when the deal would be signed.

The text, seen by Reuters, lays out that the two sides independently inform Washington of their approval of the deal.

The United States will then send a notice to each that the deal has entered into force, and the signatories then send the coordinates for the new border to the United Nations.

Hochstein told a webinar hosted by the Middle East Institute on Tuesday he would be travelling to the region next week but did not give dates or destinations.

"The President of Lebanon and Prime Minister of Israel will decide on the signing. Stay tuned in the next few days," Hochstein said.



Lebanon's Caretaker Prime Minister Visits Military Positions in the Country's South

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
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Lebanon's Caretaker Prime Minister Visits Military Positions in the Country's South

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has begun a tour of military positions in the country’s south, almost a month after a ceasefire deal that ended the war between Israel and the Hezbollah group that battered the country.
Najib Mikati on Monday was on his first visit to the southern frontlines, where Lebanese soldiers under the US-brokered deal are expected to gradually deploy, with Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops both expected to withdraw by the end of next month, The Associated Press said.
Mikati’s tour comes after the Lebanese government expressed its frustration over ongoing Israeli strikes and overflights in the country.
“We have many tasks ahead of us, the most important being the enemy's (Israel's) withdrawal from all the lands it encroached on during its recent aggression,” he said after meeting with army chief Joseph Aoun in a Lebanese military barracks in the southeastern town of Marjayoun. “Then the army can carry out its tasks in full.”
The Lebanese military for years has relied on financial aid to stay functional, primarily from the United States and other Western countries. Lebanon’s cash-strapped government is hoping that the war’s end and ceasefire deal will bring about more funding to increase the military’s capacity to deploy in the south, where Hezbollah’s armed units were notably present.
Though they were not active combatants, the Lebanese military said that dozens of its soldiers were killed in Israeli strikes on their premises or patrolling convoys in the south. The Israeli army acknowledged some of these attacks.