On July 2, Hezbollah launched three unarmed drones toward the vessel, which Israel intercepted. A fourth one was intercepted over the Mediterranean Sea a week ago, with security sources estimating that the drones headed for Karish.
The dispute is focused on a potentially gas-rich, 854 square kilometers (330-square-miles) area of the Mediterranean Sea off Israel and Lebanon. The revenues from future natural gas production there could reach billions of dollars.
Iran – Hezbollah axis is promoting itself in control of Lebanon and Karish Gas fields. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned that “no one” would be allowed to operate in maritime oil and gas fields if Lebanon was barred from its “rights” in extracting from areas off its own coast. He hinted at further attacks, saying his group has military capacities on land, in the air, and at sea and could simultaneously deploy a “large number” of weaponized drones. In addition, Nasrallah Blames Israel for Lebanon’s Economic Conditions: 2021 U.N. report seventy-eight percent of Lebanon’s population is now living in poverty, an urgent humanitarian crisis facing the country. Lebanon is in the throes of one of the world’s worst economic meltdowns, according to the World Bank, with the local lira losing 90% of its value since 2019.
Hezbollah created a convoluted state-within-a-state system using the country’s resources to support its Shiite base. The economy has collapsed, and the government has endured endemic corruption, mismanagement, and a banking scandal. The currency lost most of its value, and services from trash collection to electricity failed.
Iran’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah gave a date with next war with Israel, “ he declared that if Lebanon’s economic water rights are undermined, he would go to war”. He even set a deadline: September 2022. Nasrallah threatened “Karish and beyond Karish,” echoing a statement he made a few weeks before a month-long conflict with Israel in 2006 when he threatened “Haifa and beyond Haifa.” Several countries have intervened to secure a solution before September, especially the U.S. and France.
