On 12 June, Israeli Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi announced that thousands of targets in Lebanon have been identified in the case of a new war with their neighboring state.

Delivering his speech during the National Home Front Conference, when asked about the possibility of a war with Lebanon, he said: “We have crystallized thousands of targets that will be destroyed in the enemy’s missile and rocket systems.”

He went on to claim that they will “notify” the residents of Lebanon before any attack.

This comes a few days after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah spoke out against the Israeli provocations at the Lebanese-Maritime border, describing the situation as “a hostile act.”

During his 9 June speech, Nasrallah referred to the gas extraction vessel that docked in Lebanese waters earlier this week, saying that the resistance movement is militarily and financially capable of preventing Israel from extracting gas from the Karish field and that no measures can protect Israel’s floating platform.

Energean Power, a UK vessel, seeks to construct an extraction rig in the Karish gas field on behalf of an Israeli firm.

The Karish gas field lies in Lebanese territorial waters, however.

Last week, Energean Power sent a floating production, storage and offloading unit to the Karish fields to assist in Israel’s maritime project.

On 15 February, Lebanese President Michel Aoun backtracked on an earlier affirmation made from Lebanon to the UN, claiming the Lebanese demarcation line between maritime lines 23 to 29, which amount to an area of 1,430 square kilometers.

Aoun said that the priority lies in “reaching an agreement that satisfies both parties” amid UN-brokered indirect talks between Lebanon and Israel on delineating the disputed offshore borders.

He added that  point 23 was eventually marked as a maritime boundary, and that the decision “was not a concession, but our real and actual right.”