NICOSIA, Cyprus: Lebanon is ready to work with Cyprus to exploit potential gas deposits in waters between the two east Mediterranean countries, Lebanon’s top diplomat said Friday, even though a deal on offshore rights hasn’t been formally finalized.
Cyprus and Lebanon signed an agreement delineating their respective offshore exclusive economic zones in 2007, but the Lebanese parliament has yet to ratify it amid the country’s ongoing maritime border dispute with Israel.
Nevertheless, Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said after talks with his Cypriot counterpart in Nicosia that “with Cyprus there’s no problem, once we found gas we’re ready to go, put it together.”
“We talked about it and I can assure you that Lebanon is ready to do it,” Bou Habib said.
The Lebanese top diplomat’s remarks come as Europe is seeking new energy sources to wean itself off Russian gas in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Cyprus has issued exploration drilling licenses to ExxonMobil and partner Qatar Petroleum, a consortium made up of French energy company Total and Italy’s Eni, as well as Chevron and partner Shell, to most of its 13 segments in its exclusive economic zone off its southern coast.
To the north, Cyprus faces an intense challenge from Turkey which claims much of the island’s EEZ as its own and has sent warship-escorted survey ships into the area — earning condemnation from the European Union, of which Cyprus is a member.
Cyprus was split along ethnic lines in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. The breakaway Turkish Cypriot north is only recognized by Turkey.
Lebanon’s Bou Habib said a US written mediation proposal submitted earlier this year that aimed at resolving the Lebanese-Israeli dispute, while much better than previous attempts, is “not enough yet.”
He said both Lebanon’s government and its lawmakers are “all in agreement” on what they seek from a deal with Israel.
“Therefore the response to the Americans hopefully would be soon and it would be one response,” Bou Habib said.
Any discoveries within Lebanon’s own economic zone would be a long-term boon for the crisis-hit country’s beleaguered economy.
Lebanon’s economic crisis has been described by the World Bank as one of the world’s worst since the 1850s. Tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs since October 2019 and the Lebanese pound lost more than 90 percent of its value.
Lebanon ready to work with Cyprus on potential offshore gas
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Lebanon ready to work with Cyprus on potential offshore gas
- Cyprus and Lebanon signed an agreement delineating their respective offshore exclusive economic zones in 2007
- The Lebanese top diplomat’s remarks come as Europe is seeking new energy sources to wean itself off Russian gas in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Survival in Gaza ‘on the edge,’ living conditions ‘brutal’ despite easing of hunger, UN officials warn
- ‘The situation remains extremely precarious … Having an entire population living on the brink is just not acceptable,’ says UNICEF deputy executive director
- ‘Hundreds of thousands of people are shivering in fabric tents that don’t keep the heat in or the rain out,’ adds World Food Programme deputy executive director
NEW YORK CITY: Survival in Gaza remains “on the edge” and the conditions there are “extremely brutal,” senior UN officials said on Monday, despite some easing of the situation compared with last year.
They warned that the entire population of the battered enclave is living on the brink, in what they described as an unacceptable situation. Urgent decisions are needed to ensure humanitarian access remains open, and to prevent fragile gains from being reversed they added.
“The situation remains extremely precarious, with survival at the edge,” the deputy executive director of UNICEF, Ted Chaiban, told reporters after returning from a visit to Gaza and the West Bank.
“Having an entire population living on the brink is just not acceptable.”
Carl Skau, the World Food Programme’s deputy executive director, who accompanied Chaiban on the visit, said the living conditions for hundreds of thousands of displaced people were “just brutal,” with families sheltering in flimsy tents or heavily damaged buildings in Gaza as winter storms batter the territory.
“Hundreds of thousands of people are shivering in fabric tents that don’t keep the heat in or the rain out,” Skau said.
“I met a woman, who had given birth just 10 days earlier, sitting on a wet mattress in a cold tent on the beach. It was absolutely brutal.”
Both officials said the situation had improved compared with a year ago, when Gaza was on the brink of famine, but stressed that the gains were fragile and could easily be reversed.
“The ceasefire has allowed us to rein in famine,” Skau said. “Most people I spoke to were eating at least once a day. But there is still a very long way to go. The situation is extremely fragile.”
Chaiban said that more aid and commercial goods were entering Gaza and the availability of food had improved, but he warned that the humanitarian crisis remained deadly, for children in particular.
“More than 100 children have been reported killed since the ceasefire,” he said, adding that about 100,000 youngsters are still acutely malnourished and require long-term care.
About 1.3 million people, many of them children, still lack proper shelter, Chaiban added, as families continue to live in flimsy tents or bombed-out buildings, exposed to heavy rain, strong winds and freezing temperatures.
At least 10 children reportedly have died of hypothermia since winter began.
“It really is miserable in those tents,” Chaiban said.
Skau said hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced, unable to return to homes that had been reduced to rubble, and struggling to survive with little protection from the elements.
“I spoke to a woman who had lost her husband, most of her relatives and her home,” he said. “She was left with four children and absolutely nothing.”
Both officials highlighted moments of resilience amid the devastation, including children who had returned to learning and families who were attempting to rebuild fragments of normal life, but said such signs of hope should not obscure the sheer scale of the ongoing suffering.
“The gains we’ve made can easily be reversed,” Skau said. “So much more needs to be done now.”
Both of the officials said further progress would depend on the continuation of the ceasefire agreement and predictable humanitarian access, including the opening and sustained operation of multiple border crossings, and routes into and within Gaza. Aid workers need safe conditions in which to operate at scale, they added.
Shelter remains the most urgent need as winter storms continue; Skau said the immediate priority was to “flood the strip with shelter,” while Chaiban said decisions were urgently needed to ensure access for essential supplies and to restore basic services.
The coming weeks will be critical, Chaiban said, adding: “We have a window to change the trajectory for children in Gaza. We can’t waste it.”
