The Maritime Border Agreement: What Israel and Lebanon Gain, and Hezbollah's Position

Orna Mizrahi and Yoram Schweitzer explain what each side achieves from this agreement, and how it is expected to affect the future of relations between Israel and Lebanon, and in particular the relationship between Israel and Hezbollah, against the background of Nasrallah’s threats against Israel and the launch of drones toward the Karish gas field this past July.

What are the factors that contributed to reaching an agreement at the current time? What is the role of the United States in this agreement? Can this agreement actually prevent an escalation of the military conflict between Israel and Hezbollah? What can we understand from the kinetic campaign (i.e., the launch of drones toward Karish), as well as the cognitive campaign that Hezbollah launched during the negotiations on the agreement? In the long term, does this agreement help maintain the balance of deterrence between Israel and Hezbollah, or encourage Hezbollah to provoke Israel more in the future, perhaps eventually leading to a military confrontation?