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Lebanon and Israel have reached a “historic” deal to end a long-running maritime border dispute in the gas-rich Mediterranean Sea, according to negotiators from the two countries.

Lebanon’s presidency voiced hope that “the agreement on the demarcation will be announced as soon as possible”. Aoun had previously said that a deal would not signify a “partnership” with Israel. The two countries are technically at war.

The deal would resolve a territorial dispute in the eastern tip of the Mediterranean Sea in an area where Lebanon aims to explore for natural gas, and near waters where Israel has already found commercially viable quantities of hydrocarbons.

The parallels between Lebanon and Sicily are many, and may hold clues for why the judiciary has struggled to impose the law on societies that, in many regards, were built on foundations opposing the state. Both are places that have been conquered over the centuries by multiple powers, so that they have absorbed contradictory, even clashing, political legacies. In Sicily and Lebanon, traditional social ties have tended to displace mediation by the institutions of the modern state, while religion has been an instrument of debilitating illiberalism as well as an occasional driver of reform. And in both, the preferred traditional response to the abuses present all around has generally been silence

The mafia and the political class that so thoroughly dominated Lebanon at the end of the country’s civil war in 1990 had a very similar trajectory. Both exploited major transitional periods in their country’s history to, schizophrenically, anchor their criminal networks in the mechanisms of legitimate governance.

In Lebanon, the transition out of war in 1990 only perpetuated what had existed during the conflict. The main sponsor of the postwar order was not the Lebanese state, as it had been the state in Italy, but the Syrian regime. This allowed most of the sectarian militia leaders to shape the peacetime republic around their political and financial interests and patronage networks, which the Syrians were more than happy to endorse, as they too extracted tremendous rent from the corruption of Lebanon’s reconstruction period. Rather than resting on an understanding between the state and a criminal element, postwar Lebanon was entirely dominated by a sectarian political leadership that had sustained itself financially during the war years through criminal economic behavior.

During our many meetings at LAF headquarters my colleagues and I never ceased to be impressed by the professional excellence – scientific, legal, and diplomatic – of the Lebanese team.

Hariri designated his foreign policy adviser and the former ambassador to the United States, Mohamed Chatah, as my most senior governmental point of contact. Mohamed was cordial, but tough in insisting that Lebanon would stand up for its rights. A kindly and decent man, Mohamed shared with me his view that the Lebanese political establishment would seek to steal future hydrocarbon revenues, and he therefore favored the “Alaska approach,” whereby such income would be distributed directly to every Lebanese adult. No doubt it was that kind of thinking that got Mohamed assassinated in 2013.

Lebanon desperately needed hydrocarbon revenue, but the prospect of a confrontation with a militarily superior Israel was dictating caution among global energy firms

From Tripoli to Tyre, and Beirut to Baalbek, Lebanese have been chanting the same slogan: “All of them means all of them.” Since its independence, Lebanon has been ruled by a clique of politicians and political families who have used sectarianism, corruption and clientelism to cling to power and amass incredible wealth. Now protesters are calling for them all to be removed, from Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah to Prime Minister Saad Hariri, with nervous responses from the leaders themselves. Middle East Eye takes a quick look at some of the more prominent figures and parties in the protesters’ sights.

The Hariri family was once the darling of Saudi Arabia, but apparently no longer

Aoun is one of Lebanon’s many leaders who played an active and violent part in the country’s 1975-90 civil war. As head of the army in the war’s latter years, Aoun fought bitter conflicts with the occupying Syrian military and the Lebanese Forces paramilitary headed by his rival, Samir Geagea. In 1989, Aoun found himself besieged in the presidential palace in Baabda, where he now resides as president, and fled Syrian troops to the French embassy, which granted him exile.

The Lebanese army announced Sunday that it thwarted an operation to smuggle people by sea out of northern Lebanon, another attempt by people seeking to flee Lebanon for Cyprus.

The army added that one of its naval patrols was able to rescue 9 Syrian nationals on a sinking boat headed for Cyprus

On Sep. 18, UNHCR issued a statement that it was "deeply concerned by the spike in self-organized movements by boats to Cyprus" and "distraught by the deaths and dangerous situations that many vulnerable men, women and children are put into as they desperately search for means of survival."

Lebanon’s dire financial crisis over the past two years has slipped over three-quarters of the population into poverty. Many Lebanese are struggling to cope with skyrocketing inflation, crippling power cuts, medicine shortages, and an absence of viable social services.

Many Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian families have resorted to selling everything they own, and trying to migrate by sea to Europe to find job opportunities.

a forum joining Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, and other neighbors to develop their new natural gas discoveries. The Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum, announced Monday in Cairo, formalizes growing energy ties among recent rivals and could spur much-needed development of energy infrastructure required to tap the region’s potential as a source of energy for Europe and beyond. The forum in particular cements the growing commercial links between Israel and Egypt; Israel expects to start shipping natural gas to Egypt in the next few months as part of a landmark, $15 billion deal between the two countries.

a few notable absences, including Syria and Lebanon—both of which are trying to develop potential offshore gas fields—and especially Turkey

The new body will promote “discussions among countries that already have cooperation with each other,” said Brenda Shaffer, an energy expert at Georgetown University. “Hopefully, in the next round of the forum, Turkey will be involved, and that would make it much more significant and not just include the happy campers.”

Picasso-Mediterranee, a two-year project involving a range of museums, galleries and art centers to explore Picasso's relation to the Mediterranean, which served as his home and as inspiration. Picasso, undeniably Mediterranean, drew inspiration from both the northern and southern shores of the sea. The culture and myths of ancient Greece as well as the Middle Eastern were of great interest to him. In version L of “Women of Algiers,” a series of 15 paintings and hundreds of sketches paying tribute to the French orientalist painter Eugene Delacroix, he drew a single woman with a hookah, an image inspired by the ancient Middle Eastern goddess Astarte. Picasso-Mediterranee presented more than forty-five exhibitions in Mediterranean cities during 2017-2019. At the press conference for the Izmir opening, Laurent Le Bon, president of the Paris-based Picasso National Museum, remarked, “Monographic, thematic or exploring the relationship between Picasso and other artists, all provide an innovative approach to Picasso’s works as seen through the prism of the Mediterranean world.” The Paris museum oversaw the project.

There is good reason for Picasso to continue to inspire the Mediterranean world nearly half a century after his death and at a time when populations around the region are in flux. “Picasso himself was a migrant,” Le Bon recalled in Izmir. “Though he spent most of his life in France, when he applied for nationality [in 1940], he was denied.” The themes Picasso dealt with — among them poverty, inequality, social protests, and, as depicted in his most famous work, “Guernica,” civil war and destruction — still dominate the lands surrounding the sea.

The 40-year-old car carrier named Bana that plied the waters of the Mediterranean was unremarkable in almost all ways, except a dramatic one: the Lebanese-flagged vessel’s shipment of weapons from Turkey to Libya in January 2020 placed it squarely in a whirlwind of international intrigue

the European Union on Sept. 21 sanctioned the ship’s operator, Med Wave Shipping SA, a company that L’Orient Today has learned is owned by a Lebanese shipping magnate’s relative who ran for Parliament in 2018

Little is as it seems on the surface of the complex world of maritime shipping. A trail of documents, public statements and other information sheds light on the kaleidoscopic history of Med Wave Shipping SA and the Bana, one that is bookended by sanctions, marked by arms shipments and has passed through Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Libya and Italy.

Turkish armed forces began the largest naval exercise in the country's history on Wednesday, with 103 military vessels and thousands of soldiers conducting operations in three seas surrounding the country. The drill, dubbed “Blue Homeland”, will be held until Saturday, covering over 462,000 square metres in the Black Sea, Aegean Sea and eastern Mediterranean.

tensions have been building in the waters to Turkey's west with its neighbours Greece and Cyprus, as the countries vie over subterranean energy resources, particularly natural gas

Blue Homeland has already caused disturbance in neighbouring countries, as Greek media reports suggest Athens has perceived it as a source of “renewed concern given the recent tension in bilateral relations”.