EDITORIAL: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria — Netanyahu Installs Permanent Occupation While the World Watches

Introduction: "As Long as Necessary" — Three Words That Change Everything

The June 25 Declaration at the Officers' Ceremony

On June 25, 2026, at a graduation ceremony for Israeli officers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared with disturbing clarity: "We will remain in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza for as long as necessary." Three theaters. One declaration. And a logic of permanent occupation that international law repudiates and that the international community has been unable to prevent. These three words — "as long as necessary" — constitute in reality a doctrine of territorial expansion with no defined endpoint, backed by the most powerful military force in the Middle East.

What This Declaration Concretely Means

Behind the security rhetoric, a cartographic reality is taking shape: Israel has established since October 2025 32 military bases in southern Lebanon, a buffer zone in Syria extending well beyond what the ceasefire permitted, and a military presence in the Gaza Strip now controlling approximately 70 percent of the territory under the guise of security corridors. This is an occupation architecture that precedes any political solution — and that, through its own inertia, makes that political solution increasingly difficult to imagine.

Gaza in 2026: The Occupation That Does Not Speak Its Name

32 Bases, Buffer Zones and Security Corridors

Since the start of the partial ceasefire of October 2025, Israeli forces have consolidated their presence in the Gaza Strip through an architecture that resembles a structured occupation more than a gradual withdrawal. The 32 military bases established, the security corridors that cut across the territory from end to end, and the buffer zone several kilometers wide along the border — all were presented as temporary when first created. In June 2026, they show no sign of being dismantled.

11 Percent of Territory Beyond the Yellow Line

Israel has extended its effective control by approximately 11 percent beyond the Yellow Line — the border defined by the 1949 agreements and reaffirmed by UN Security Council resolutions. This expansion has not been formally declared as an annexation — which would have triggered stronger legal and diplomatic responses — but it is real in fact: the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) exercise exclusive authority there, prohibit the return of the Palestinian civilian population, and have established permanent installations.

Professor Michael Becker of Trinity College Dublin, a specialist in international humanitarian law, describes this situation as a "risk of de facto annexation" — a precise expression that distinguishes formal legal status (non-declared annexation) from operational reality (exclusive and permanent control of a territory). This distinction, scholarly in its formulation, masks a simple reality: Palestinians are not going home.

The Figure That Should Stop Us: 72,819 Dead

The Accounting of Death in Gaza Since October 2023

Since October 7, 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry — whose counting methodologies have been validated by the World Health Organization — has recorded 72,819 deaths. This figure, which continues to rise despite the partial ceasefire of October 2025, includes a majority of civilians, women and children according to demographic analyses of victims. It represents approximately 3.2 percent of Gaza's total population as estimated in 2023.

The Displaced Population: 1.9 Million Out of 2.3 Million

Out of a population of 2.3 million Gazans, 1.9 million have been displaced since the start of the conflict — over 80 percent of the total population. Most live in precarious conditions in the Rafah corridor and in the uncontrolled areas of northern Gaza, without reliable access to drinking water, medical care or adequate food. Oxfam International documented in May 2026 that Israel was still restricting humanitarian aid entry below the levels needed to cover the population's basic needs.

These numbers are not abstract. They represent families, children, doctors, teachers, farmers — civilian lives caught in a conflict they did not choose. Naming these realities is not antisemitism — it is journalism. And refusing to name them is a form of complicity through silence.

Netanyahu's Strategy: Political Survival and Territorial Agenda

The Prime Minister Under Judicial and Political Pressure

Benjamin Netanyahu is on trial for corruption, fraud and breach of trust in three cases before Israeli courts. His political survival depends on the continuity of his role as prime minister — which grants him effective immunity. His governing coalition, composed of the far-right parties of Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, conditions its support on the absence of any significant withdrawal from Gaza and on maintaining an active settlement policy in the West Bank. In this context, the June 25 declaration is not only a strategic doctrine — it is a political necessity of personal survival.

Smotrich, Ben Gvir and the Greater Israel Ideology

Bezalel Smotrich, Finance Minister, declared in May 2026 that the colonization of Gaza was "a national and religious mission." Itamar Ben Gvir, a former convict for incitement to terrorism, heads a party whose platform explicitly calls for the displacement of the Arab population from Gaza and the West Bank. These two men are not marginal extremists within Netanyahu's government — they are essential members whose withdrawal would trigger the coalition's collapse. Israeli policy toward Gaza in 2026 is therefore structurally constrained by these internal alliances.

This Israeli internal political reality is often absent from analyses that treat government decisions as pure strategic calculations. Netanyahu has no room to maneuver toward the center — the pressure from his extremist allies pulls him toward a permanent occupation policy even if he personally wanted a way out.

International Law and Its Limits Facing Gaza

The International Court of Justice and Its Unenforced Rulings

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued several orders since January 2024 in the proceedings initiated by South Africa under the Convention on war crimes against Israel. These orders — which require Israel to take measures to prevent atrocities against civilians — have not been complied with by Israel, which disputes the Court's competence over defensive military operations. No binding enforcement mechanism exists to force a permanent member state or P5 ally to comply with ICJ orders.

The International Criminal Court and Arrest Warrants

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued in November 2024 arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. These warrants, applying to the 124 member states of the ICC, theoretically prevent Netanyahu from traveling to those countries. In practice, the majority of Western democracies that are ICC members — including the United Kingdom, France and Germany — have adopted ambiguous positions on the execution of these warrants.

The United States, not an ICC member, categorically rejected the warrants — the Trump administration even adopted sanctions against ICC officials, aggravating an institutional crisis that permanently weakens the credibility of international criminal justice.

Humanitarian Aid: The Slow Starvation Strategy

Oxfam, WFP and Data on Access Restrictions

Oxfam International published in May 2026 a report documenting that quantities of humanitarian aid entering Gaza via Israeli-controlled crossing points remained 40 to 60 percent below the minimum needs calculated by the World Food Programme (WFP). The report stresses that this restriction is not a logistical failure — loaded trucks wait at borders — but a deliberate policy of controlling humanitarian flows used as a tool of military and political pressure.

Acute Malnutrition in Northern Gaza

UNICEF reported in June 2026 rates of severe acute malnutrition in northern Gaza comparable to those observed during famine situations in sub-Saharan Africa. Children under five are showing irreversible growth retardation. Infants are dying from preventable diseases in hospitals with no antibiotics, sterile water or reliable electricity. This reality coexists with military declarations about the "surgical precision" of Israeli operations.

These data are not contested by Israel in their substance — they are simply presented as unavoidable collateral damage in a war against Hamas. This justification is insufficient under international humanitarian law, which imposes specific obligations to protect civilians and ensure humanitarian access independently of military justifications.

The European Position: Rhetorical Firmness, Practical Inaction

Calls, Declarations and... Nothing Enforceable

The European Union has multiplied condemnation statements on humanitarian law violations in Gaza, calls for restraint, communiqués demanding humanitarian access. In practice, trade relations between the EU and Israel remain broadly intact, the EU-Israel Association Agreement has not been suspended despite its human rights clauses, and no specific sanctions have been adopted against Israeli officials. The distance between European rhetoric and action on Gaza is a significant source of credibility loss for the Union in international forums.

Spain, Ireland and Belgium: Internal EU Dissent

A group of European countries — Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Slovenia — have adopted markedly more critical positions toward Israel, formally recognized the Palestinian state (Spain and Ireland in May 2024), and advocated for targeted sanctions against settlers and those responsible for documented violations. This internal EU dissent has not yet produced a more binding common European policy — but it signals a growing fragmentation of the European position that will intensify if the situation in Gaza does not evolve.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which had engaged normalization processes with Israel within the Abraham Accords framework, have put those processes on hold in the face of the Gaza escalation — a regional diplomatic consequence that Netanyahu appears willing to absorb to maintain his domestic policy.

The "Morning After" Scenario: What Palestine Is Still Possible?

The Weakened Palestinian Authority and the Post-Hamas Governance Question

If Israel's declared objective in Gaza is the elimination of Hamas, the question of post-Hamas governance remains without a concrete answer from the Netanyahu administration. The Palestinian Authority (PA), led by Mahmoud Abbas since 2005, is deeply weakened by years of corruption, institutional paralysis and loss of legitimacy among the population. Projecting the PA into Gaza — as Washington vaguely proposes — without profound reform would amount to replacing one governance problem with another.

The Two-State Solution: Buried or Pending?

The two-state solution — a viable, secure and mutually recognized Israeli state and Palestinian state — remains the only internationally recognized viable formula. But it is increasingly difficult to implement concretely: the 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank (some armed and supported by Smotrich), the destruction of Gaza's infrastructure, and the geographic fragmentation of Palestinian territory make it both necessary and structurally compromised. Netanyahu's June 25 declaration — "as long as necessary" — is a declaration of war against this solution.

What the editorialist can say with certainty: a durable solution for Gaza will not come from weapons, nor from food deprivation, nor from military occupations. It will come from an international political will to treat Palestinians as persons entitled to security, dignity and sovereignty — exactly as Ukrainians and Israelis are entitled to them.

Conclusion: What History Will Retain of June 2026

The Moment the World Looked Away

June 2026 may be remembered as the moment the international community — preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, tensions in the Indo-Pacific, the Iranian nuclear negotiation — looked away while Gaza became irreversibly occupied. Three simultaneous theaters, three crises unfolding in parallel, and a limited global political attention span. In this environment of selective attention, Netanyahu chose his moment: advance when the world is distracted.

What We Owe to Truth

The role of journalism is to refuse selective attention. To name the dead — the 72,819 dead of Gaza and the victims of Russian aggression in Ukraine, both simultaneously, without hierarchy. To recall that Palestinian sovereignty and Ukrainian sovereignty deserve the same level of principled defense. One does not invalidate the other. And ethical consistency obliges us to support both.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency box

Positioning and method

This editorial takes clear positions on Israeli occupation policy in Gaza. It draws on verifiable factual data (victim figures from the Gaza Health Ministry validated by the WHO, Oxfam data, UNICEF reports) and on public declarations by Netanyahu. The columnist condemns Russian aggression against Ukraine and the occupation of Gaza — two compatible positions within a coherent ethical framework founded on international law.

Deliberately chosen words and expressions

The expression "slow-motion territorial cleansing politics" in the body of the article is an editorial opinion, not a legal conclusion — only the ICJ can establish this crime in the legal sense. It expresses the columnist's position on the long-term effect of the occupation and humanitarian restriction policy.

Sources

Primary sources

Al Jazeera — Netanyahu declaration: "We will remain" — June 25, 2026

Oxfam — Israel Deliberately Worsening Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza — May 2026

ICJ — South Africa v. Israel (Convention on the Prevention of War Crimes) — Orders 2024-2026

Secondary sources

ICC — Arrest Warrants Against Netanyahu and Gallant — November 2024

UNICEF — Severe Malnutrition Among Children in Gaza — June 2026

Foreign Policy — Netanyahu's Permanent Occupation Doctrine — June 2026