Israel, Lebanon signs maritime border deal

Israel, Lebanon signs maritime border deal

• Israel and Lebanon on Thursday separately signed a U.S.­brokered maritime border deal which paves the way for lucrative offshore gas extraction by the neighbours that remain technically at war.
• U.S. President Joe Biden hailed it as a “historic breakthrough.” It comes as Western powers clamour to open new gas production and reduce vulnerability to supply cuts from Russia. 
• The deal is signed separately by Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun in Beirut and Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid in Jerusalem comes as Lebanon hopes to extract itself from what the World Bank calls one of the worst economic crises in modern world history.