The head of the Lebanese delegation to the negotiations, Pilot Staff Brig. Gen. Bassam Yassin, said the message that Lebanon sent on January 28, 2022, to the United Nations, which makes the area between Line 23 and Line 29 a contested area, has been deleted from the official website of the Department of Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea at the United Nations.

Yassin hoped that the main reason behind the incident is merely a technical error and nothing else, questioning who could be behind the removal of an official Lebanese document that preserves the rights of the Lebanese people in their billions of dollars worth of wealth.

The Lebanese Presidency asserted on Monday that any information on the border demarcation in South Lebanon is part of the country's state secrets.

It said that the information regarding the negotiations is part of Lebanon's state defense secrets and cannot be divulged by law.

Furthermore, the Presidency also said that the indirect negotiations are shrouded with secrecy to preserve national security and prevent the [Israeli] enemy from furthering its positions against Lebanon.

In the same context, US envoy Amos Hochstein met with senior Lebanese officials early in February, with new proposals to demarcate the border with occupied Palestine.