Members of the Israeli negotation team enter the border crossing with Lebanon on the day of the signing of a U.S.-brokered deal setting a maritime border between Israel and Lebanon, in Rosh Hanikra, northern Israel Oct. 27, 2022. (Credit: Amir Cohen/Reuters)
BEIRUT — Members of the Lebanese and Israeli delegations arrived in Naqoura, in southern Lebanon, Thursday to sign the US-brokered deal on their maritime border.
The Lebanese delegation temporarily refused to enter the UNIFIL Headquarters as long as an Israeli military boat violated the Lebanese territorial waters, the state-run National News Agency reported Thursday. A UNIFIL military ship was deployed where the breach happened and the international force mediated the matter until the boat retreated south.
In a tweet, Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab, who was the top Lebanese negotiator for the deal, praised the position expressed by the delegation before entering the UNIFIL base.
The Lebanese delegation left Baabda Palace to deliver a letter signed by President Michel Aoun regarding the deal to the American envoy Amos Hochstein and hand over the representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Joanna Wronecka, a letter signed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs containing the confirmation of the coordinates related to the Lebanese maritime borders for deposit by the United Nations in accordance with the mechanisms followed in the law of the sea, in the presence of the Ambassador of France Anne Grillo, the presidency announced earlier.
The delegation is composed of Director General of the presidency, Antoine Choucair, Brigadier General Mounir Shehadeh, the chairman of the board of directors of the Lebanese Petroleum Administration, Wissam Chbat, and Ahmad al-Arfah, chairman of the Center for Legal Advice at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Both delegations are set to be present for the procedure at the headquarters of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in Naqoura. The delegations representing each of the two countries will be seated in separate rooms and each will sign the annex, before handing it over to the US envoy, who will transfer it to the UN.
It is a complicated protocol designed to ensure that the signing of the deal, which was negotiated over several years, would not be seen as a step in paving the way for peace between the two neighboring countries.
In addition, the media do not have access to the UNIFIL building, around which peacekeepers and the Lebanese Army are deployed, while UNIFIL helicopters are flying over the area, according to an AFP photographer.