Hezbollah Releases Surveillance Video Threatening Gas Drilling Ships in Disputed Waters

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah disseminated a drone video in local media on Sunday showing fuel drilling ships in disputed waters on the border of Israel and Lebanon, with the recording ending with the words "in the crossfire."

The video, as broadcast by Al Manar, shows the Arendal Spirit drilling platform with its coordinates, characteristics and distance to the Lebanese coast, as well as the Energean Power FPSO oil production floating station and the Stenna Icemax drilling ship.

The second half of the video is shot from a drone and features a Hezbollah missile readying to be launched.

According to the broadcaster, the video was released several hours prior to the visit of the US Senior Adviser for Energy Security and Israel-Lebanon talks mediator, Amos Hochstein, to Lebanon's capital city of Beirut.

Hochstein is paying a working visit to Lebanon on Sunday to mediate negotiations on the demarcation of the maritime border between Israel and Lebanon.

Earlier this month, Hochstein met with Israeli Energy Minister Karine Elharrar, as well as the head of the Israeli negotiating team, Udi Adiri. Israel and Lebanon have been trying to resolve an overlap between their territorial waters situated over large oil and gas deposits since 1996.

In June, the Lebanese authorities conveyed their position on the delineation of maritime borders with Israel to Hochstein. Israel called on Lebanon to accelerate the negotiations and called the disputed Karish gas field its strategic asset, assuring that it had no intention to extract gas in the disputed territory.

The US-mediated negotiations began in 2020. Lebanon initially laid claims to 860 square kilometers (332 square miles) of waters but then modified the bid to include an extra 1,430 square kilometers encompassing part of the Karish gas field, claimed in its entirety by Israel. Israel refused to discuss those new terms.