Israel Matzav

Landau: We will use force to defend gas fields

Last week, I noted that Hezbullah is trying to lay claim to natural gas that has been discovered off Israel's coast, now that Israel has undertaken all of the expensive and financially risky exploration costs. This week, the Lebanese government got into the act as well, which prompted Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau (Yisrael Beiteinu) to announce that Israel will defend its natural gas fields militarily if necessary.

“We will not hesitate to use our force and strength to protect not only the rule of law but the international maritime law,” Landau was quoted as saying.

Landau made his comments in reaction to the declaration of Lebanon's Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, that the part of the gas field lies within Lebanon's territorial waters.

He continued, “Whatever we find, they will have something to say. That’s because they’re not challenging our findings and so-called occupation of the sea. Our very existence here is a matter of occupation for them. These areas are within the economic waters of Israel.”

A consortium led by billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva announced June 3 that it had struck natural gas in a field called 'Leviathan' off the coast of Israel.

The field is estimated to contain 15 trillion cubic feet of gas and is the second large scale gas find in a month. In May, a field called 'Tamar' was also discovered that is thought to contain enough gas to supply Israel for the next twenty years.

Landau made his comments in an interview with Bloomberg - the original write-up of that interview is here.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:01 AM