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Biden pens letter promising to guarantee Israel’s economic rights under Lebanon deal

President Biden reportedly drafts private letter promising to ensure Israeli rights under maritime border deal with Lebanon are upheld – including Israel’s economic rights to gas revenue from areas ceded to Beirut.

By World Israel News Staff

President Joe Biden wrote Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid a letter vowing to guarantee Israel’s rights under the newly signed maritime border deal with Lebanon, an American official said Saturday night.

According to the official, the letter penned to Lapid will not be released to the public, but added that the document reiterates the White House’s commitment to supporting Israel’s right to self-defense.

The letter also specifies that the Biden administration construes Israel’s right to self-defense to include defending against threats to Israeli vessels, shipping in Israeli territorial waters, and gas infrastructure in the Mediterranean.

Furthermore, the letter establishes the administration’s support for the maritime boundary set between Israel and Lebanon in the agreement as the “status quo”, which cannot be changed without mutual agreement between the two sides.

The Biden administration will commit itself to ensuring that revenue from the Sidon-Kana field, part of which was yielded by Israel to Lebanon, will not go to the Hezbollah terrorist organization.

In addition, the White House will ensure that Israel receive its 17% share of revenues from the Sidon-Kana field, Biden wrote.

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The official also said that the details of Biden’s letter to Lapid were hammered out between Israel and the White House on Friday.

The document has yet to be signed, with President Biden expected to affix his signature sometime this week.

Last Thursday, drafts of the maritime border deal were signed separately in Jerusalem and Beirut, before being handed over to intermediaries at the Israel-Lebanon border.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid hailed the deal as effectively constituting Lebanese recognition of Israel, while Lebanon’s president, Michel Aoun, rejected the claim.

In a statement issued after he signed a letter approving the terms of the agreement, Aoun said it would have “no political dimensions or impacts that contradict Lebanon’s foreign policy.”