WEST BANK (Dispatches) – The occupying regime on Sunday started to test the pumping of gas from the disputed Karish gas field amid tension with Lebanon, according to local media.
Israeli Channel 12 reported that the regime has given the U.S. gas drilling company Energean the green light to start its tests.
Public broadcaster KAN said full pumping operations from the site may be ready within weeks after the completion of the tests.
Last week, the Zionist regime’s war minister Benny Gantz said the regime will go ahead with the gas extraction from the Karish field despite threats by Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, which threatened to target the site.
On Thursday, the occupying regime rejected revisions to a U.S. draft agreement on the maritime dispute between the occupying regime and Lebanon.
Lebanon and the regime have been locked in a dispute over a maritime area of 860 square kilometers (332 square miles), according to maps sent by both sides to the UN in 2011.
The area is rich in natural gas and oil. Starting in 2020, five sessions of indirect negotiations have been held on the issue under UN sponsorship and U.S. mediation, with the latest round held in May 2021.
The developments are expected to increase tensions between the two sides.
On Thursday, the Gantz ordered the readiness of the Zionist regime’s military for a possible war with Hezbollah in the northern regions of the occupied territories.
Gantz directed the regime’s military to “prepare for a scenario of escalation in the north, both offensively and defensively, given the developments in the negotiations on the maritime border,” the Israeli ministry of military affairs said in a statement.
Reacting to the developments, Vice President of the Executive Council of Hezbollah Sheikh Ali Damoush said on Friday that the Zionist regime does not understand the language of diplomacy and only recognizes the logic of force.
“The enemy does not understand the language of diplomacy, and whoever thinks that the enemy can recognize Lebanon’s rights through the logic of negotiation alone is wrong,” he asserted. “The enemy only understands the logic of force, and this is what all past experiences have proven.”
He went on to say that the unified Lebanese position based on resistance caused the Israelis to be in a “state of unprecedented confusion” and that is why the regime once again resorted to the language of threats and intimidation.
Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported on Friday that the regime in Tel Aviv is planning on activating the Karish gas rig and will start operating experimentally before the official extraction of gas begins.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported that Lebanon will not recognize the Zionist regime’s unilaterally placed boundary in 2000, citing unnamed officials.
Lebanon also seeks a reversal of the demand for a land border demarcation and wants the issue to be handed to the UN for future discussions.