COLUMN: Israel in Syria — An Occupation Without a Mandate, a Security Council Without a Voice

Introduction: "We Will Remain as Long as Necessary" — A Formula That Hides Much

The June 25 declaration and its implications

On June 25, 2026, at a combat officer graduation ceremony in southern Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pronounced a formula that, in a few words, states a strategic position of considerable reach: "We dominate southern Lebanon, from the top of Beaufort, and we will remain as long as necessary in the security zone. We have no intention of withdrawing." His Defense Minister Israel Katz was even more explicit: "The Israeli army will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza without time limit."

Gaza and Lebanon have been the subject of intense media coverage for months. But the mention of Syria often slips under the radar of thorough journalistic analysis. And yet that is where the most extraordinary legal and political anomaly of this period is found: the permanent Israeli military presence in Syria, on the territory of a recognized sovereign state, without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council, without a formal peace agreement, without even a clear legal status. The silence of international law in the face of this reality is deafening.

Post-Assad Syria and the vacuum into which Israel slipped

Since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, Syria has been governed by a transitional government led by the moderate Islamist forces of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), now operating under the authority of President Ahmed al-Sharaa. This government faces colossal challenges: economic reconstruction, national reconciliation, and reestablishing state authority across the entire territory. In this context of institutional fragility, Israel seized the window of opportunity created by the collapse of the Syrian army to establish a military presence beyond the 1974 buffer zone.

The Extent of Israel's Presence in Syria: The Documented Facts

235 square kilometers and ten military bases

The available data are eloquent. According to a report from the UN Security Council published in June 2026, Israel has established de facto control over an area in Syria extending approximately 235 square kilometers beyond the ceasefire line and buffer zone established by the 1974 disengagement agreement. According to an Al Jazeera investigation, Israel conducted more than 800 incursions into Syrian territory between December 2024 and January 2026 alone, and built at least 10 military bases spread across three Syrian provinces.

The latest quarterly report from the UN Secretary-General on UNDOF (the UN Disengagement Observer Force in the Golan Heights), covering the period February to May 2026, reported continuing violations of the 1974 agreement, including the presence and activities of the IDF inside and beyond the separation zone. The report notes that the IDF has "maintained and reinforced" 11 positions established on the Syrian side of the separation zone and the limitation zone — two zones defined by the 1974 agreement with distinct regimes of authorized military presence.

The 1974 agreement and its current legal limits

The 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria, negotiated under Washington's auspices, created a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights, supervised by UNDOF. It did not authorize permanent Israeli military presence beyond this zone. Since December 2024, Israel has advanced its positions well beyond these limits, invoking the necessity of preventing the re-establishment of Iran and Hezbollah in southern Syria — an entirely understandable strategic objective, but one that finds no foundation in international law for justifying a permanent territorial occupation of a sovereign state.

The Security Council: Organized Paralysis Before the Syrian Anomaly

The fracture lines on the Council

Why does the Security Council not act in the face of the Israeli military presence in Syria? The answer is well known: the United States would veto any resolution condemning Israel. This structural reality is not new — it goes back to the first decades of Israel's existence and American support for its ally. But what is new in the Syrian situation is the scale of the military presence and the explicit assertion of its permanent character — not as a provisional measure pending an agreement, but as a state policy announced by Israel's top leaders.

At a Security Council briefing on Syria in June 2026, according to available information, several members expressed concerns about the situation in southern Syria, calling on Israel to "cease its military operations in Syrian territory and withdraw its forces in accordance with the 1974 agreement." These calls have had no practical consequences. A number of Council members are likely to renew these demands — with the same expected result.

The silence of Damascus

What is perhaps most troubling in the Syrian situation is the relative silence of Damascus in the face of the occupation of its territory. President al-Sharaa indicated in April 2026 that Damascus had reached "preliminary points in direct and indirect negotiations" with Israel, seeking to see Israel "withdraw at the last moment." This formulation reveals a paradox: the Syrian transitional government, confronting existential challenges of power consolidation, cannot afford a military confrontation with Israel — and struggles even to negotiate effectively. Jerusalem profits from this to consolidate its presence.

The Israeli Justification and Its Arguments

National security and protection of the Druze

Netanyahu has invoked several justifications for the Israeli presence in Syria. The primary one is security: preventing Iran and Hezbollah from reconstituting their networks in southern Syria. This concern is substantive: for years, Syrian territory under Assad served as a transfer route for Iranian weapons destined for Lebanese Hezbollah — precision-guided missiles, anti-aircraft systems, drones. Israel conducted hundreds of airstrikes against these transfers under Assad. With the regime's fall, the IDF has taken physical control of key positions to directly manage this threat.

A second justification invoked by Netanyahu — "protecting our Druze brothers" — is more contestable. The Druze community in southern Syria, many of whom have family and community ties to the Israeli Druze of the Golan, does indeed face uncertainties in post-Assad Syria. But the protection of a confessional minority in a foreign country does not constitute a recognized basis in international law for a military occupation of that country. The humanitarian argument, however sincere in its motivations, cannot legally justify a permanent military presence on sovereign territory without the host power's agreement.

The military bases: a defensive or offensive posture?

The construction of 10 military bases in Syria — with positions in three different provinces, some well beyond the traditional border — goes beyond what a strictly defensive position requires. Bases are permanent infrastructure: they have access roads, fuel depots, command and communication capabilities. They are not built if the plan is to leave quickly. Netanyahu's assertion that the IDF will remain in Syria "as long as necessary" and Katz's statement that it is a presence "without time limit" confirm what the on-the-ground infrastructure already indicates: this is not temporary.

Precedents and Their Implications for the World Order

What precedent is Israel creating?

One of the founding principles of the post-1945 international order is the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force. This principle has been regularly violated — by Russia in Crimea in 2014, by the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In each case, the international community responded with condemnations, sanctions, and support for the aggrieved party. The reaction to Israel's permanent military presence in Syria is, by comparison, remarkably muted. This contrast creates a dangerous precedent: that actors perceived as pro-Western can acquire territory by force without incurring the same consequences.

This precedent concerns not only Israel. China, Turkey — which has maintained military forces in northern Syria without a UN mandate for years — and other actors are watching how the international system treats these situations. If the rule is "pro-Western countries can occupy the territory of weak nations when it serves their security interests," then this rule will be applied even more broadly in the future, in circumstances and by actors the West does not control.

Syria and the hope of reconstruction

For Syria itself, the Israeli military presence represents a concrete obstacle to national reconstruction and reconciliation. A government that does not control its own territory cannot exercise full sovereignty. Zones under foreign military control cannot be fully integrated into a national economic and administrative project. The 1.2 million displaced Syrians who wish to return to regions under Israeli control find themselves in a situation analogous to the displaced Lebanese from the south — held hostage by a security calculus that does not account for their reality.

The Security Council and Institutional Paralysis Before Israel

A system designed for impotence in difficult cases

The Israeli military presence in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza rests on an unpleasant institutional reality: the UN Security Council is paralyzed the moment the permanent members' interests collide. The United States has exercised its veto right many times to block resolutions criticizing Israeli military operations. This American diplomatic protection is a structural feature of the international system — and it explains why Netanyahu can announce an indefinite military presence in three foreign countries without triggering a binding pressure mechanism.

China and Russia — which would normally have been able to counterbalance the American veto — find themselves in a delicate position: their own foreign policy behavior (occupation of Tibet, annexation of Crimea, operations in Syria) makes them vulnerable to accusations of hypocrisy if they push too hard on sovereignty norms. The result is an institutional deadlock that objectively benefits Israel, even if that is not Washington's declared intent.

What Netanyahu means by "security"

In his June 25 statements, Netanyahu linked the Israeli military presence to "security arrangements" aimed at preventing Hezbollah's return to southern Lebanon and maintaining a buffer against pro-Iranian forces in Syria. These objectives are militarily defensible from the Israeli perspective: the experience of October 2023 demonstrated the catastrophic costs of a poorly secured northern border. But "security arrangement" defines no perimeter, no duration, no exit conditions, no legal framework.

This deliberate ambiguity is a feature, not a bug, of Israeli security policy. By maintaining an open definition of its security needs, Israel retains the flexibility to redefine its requirements based on evolving ground conditions. It is an effective short-term strategy — but it makes negotiating a stable diplomatic framework with neighboring states and the international community practically impossible.

The Israeli Justification and Its Legal Limits

The argument of preventive self-defense

The legal framework Israel invokes for its military operations in Lebanon and Syria is essentially preventive self-defense — Article 51 of the UN Charter, interpreted broadly to include imminent threats rather than ongoing attacks. This interpretation is contested by a majority of UN member states, but defended by the United States and a few other Western democracies that themselves resort to similar justifications.

The problem is that the legality of the Israeli military presence in sovereign states like Lebanon and Syria depends entirely on the definition of "imminent threat" — a definition that can be stretched indefinitely if the occupying country is the sole judge. Without an independent and binding verification mechanism, "remain as long as necessary" can mean: indefinitely, at the discretion of a single government.

Arab reactions and regional dynamics

Arab governments — notably Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Egypt — find themselves in a delicate position in the face of Netanyahu's statements. Their publics are deeply anti-Israeli following the operations in Gaza, but their governments have practical interests in cooperating with Israel on regional security and containing Iran. This tension between public opinion and governmental realpolitik creates unstable dynamics.

The Israeli-Saudi normalization process — which seemed close to signature before October 2023 — is today stalled. Saudi conditions include concrete progress toward a Palestinian state — a condition that Netanyahu's current government cannot accept without provoking the collapse of its coalition. This Israeli domestic political blockage has considerable regional geopolitical consequences: it prevents the formation of a coherent Arab-Israeli front against Iran.

International Precedents and the Liberal World Order

The specter of double standards

Netanyahu's declaration about indefinite military presence in three countries was immediately seized upon by actors like Russia and China as an illustration of Western double standards. The logic is simple: if Israel can remain "as long as necessary" in Syria and Lebanon for security reasons, why could Russia not remain in the occupied Ukrainian territories for the same reasons? The Western response — that the situations are fundamentally different — is correct but insufficiently articulated to convince public opinion in the Global South.

This perceived double standard is one of the principal vectors of Russian and Chinese propaganda in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. In these regions, the West is often seen not as a defender of the liberal international order but as an actor that applies international law when convenient and violates it when not. Netanyahu's statement of June 25 provides ammunition for this narrative — whatever one thinks of its own legitimacy.

Toward a diplomatic framework for security zones

International law experts have proposed alternative models for legitimizing military security zones without indefinite occupation. The model of a temporary security zone — geographically defined, time-limited, subject to periodic reviews by an international body such as the Security Council or a contact group — would allow Israel to maintain its practical security needs while fitting into an acceptable legal framework.

This framework is difficult to negotiate — especially with an Israeli coalition government that includes members hostile to any multilateral agreement. But the alternative — indefinite military presence without a legal framework in three sovereign countries — is costlier in the long term, for both regional security and the credibility of the liberal international order that the West claims to defend. Israel's sincere friends should help it build this framework — not help it avoid it.

Conclusion: The Exception That Threatens to Become the Rule

What this institutional silence reveals

The Security Council's silence in the face of Israel's permanent military presence in Syria reveals a profound fragility in the collective security system that liberal democracies have built since 1945. When rules apply only selectively — depending on who violates them and what their geopolitical alignment is — they lose their universal value and their capacity to regulate state behavior. Every exception granted — or simply tolerated through inaction — makes the next exception a little easier to justify.

What the West must assume as responsibility

Western democracies defending international law against Russia in Ukraine must be prepared to apply the same standards to their allies. This does not mean abandoning Israel — it is a democratic state facing real threats. It means demanding that Israeli security arrangements in Syria be accompanied by a negotiated legal and diplomatic framework with Syrian authorities, rather than imposed unilaterally. It is a difficult challenge, but it is the price of consistency. And in a world where the West's adversaries exploit every inconsistency to discredit the liberal international order, consistency is not a luxury — it is a strategic necessity.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency box

My position on Israel and the regional conflict

I defend Israel's right to exist and to security as a democratic state in a hostile region. I recognize the real threats that Iran, Hezbollah, and other actors pose to Israeli security. At the same time, I cannot defend the selective application of international law, where pro-Western allies receive a tolerance that their adversaries do not. This analytical consistency does not make me hostile to Israel — it makes me demanding toward all actors, including those I fundamentally support.

The limits of my analysis

I do not have access to Israeli intelligence assessments on the Iranian and Hezbollah threat in Syria that strategically motivate the military presence. The figures on the extent of occupied zones (235 km²) and military bases (10) come from secondary sources — UN report, Al Jazeera investigation — whose every detail I cannot independently verify. The situation on the ground in Syria is evolving rapidly, and some facts cited may have changed between drafting and publication.

Sources

Primary sources

Al Jazeera — Netanyahu: We will remain in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza as long as required — June 25, 2026

Security Council Report — Syria: Briefing and Consultations — June 19, 2026

Middle East Eye — Israel will remain in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza without time limit — June 26, 2026

Secondary sources

The New Arab — Israel says troops won't withdraw from Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria — June 26, 2026

Anadolu Agency — Israel will remain in territory occupied in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza indefinitely — June 25, 2026

Eastern Herald — Netanyahu Vows Israel Will Keep Troops in Southern Lebanon — June 26, 2026