OPINION: Israel on Three Fronts — Netanyahu and the Doctrine of Endless Occupation

Introduction: The Declaration That Changes Everything

A graduation ceremony turned into a political manifesto

On June 25, 2026, during a graduation ceremony for combat officers in southern Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a line that reads like a lifetime governing program: "We will remain in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza as long as necessary." No timeline. No condition. No diplomatic horizon. A permanent occupation — declared, embraced, and presented as a strategic victory.

Defense Minister Israel Katz drove the point home that same day, stating that the Israel Defense Forces would remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza "without a time limit", and "despite all existing and future pressures" — including, he specified, if the United States asked. That is open defiance toward Washington. It is unprecedented in the modern American-Israeli relationship.

Occupation as national identity

Israel currently occupies 608 square kilometers in southern Lebanon, according to experts at the Carnegie Middle East Center. It controls 194 square kilometers in Gaza according to Israeli human rights organization Gisha. And it maintains a military presence in Syria beyond the Golan Heights, in violation of a 1974 ceasefire agreement. In total, Israel occupies more than 1,000 square kilometers of foreign territory — more than at any point since the 1970s, according to an Associated Press investigation.

More than one million Lebanese have been driven from their homes. Israel's ground offensive in southern Lebanon, launched in March 2026, has killed more than 4,000 people according to Lebanese authorities. And despite the US-Iranian memorandum of understanding signed on June 17, 2026 in Versailles — which explicitly calls for a cessation of hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon — Israel refuses to withdraw its troops and continues its airstrikes.

Three Territories, Three Justifications, One Logic

Gaza: the shattered mirror of a war without end

In Gaza, Netanyahu declared his intention to control 70 percent of the territory. The Israeli army has razed entire neighborhoods, demolished hospital infrastructure, and displaced virtually all of the strip's 2.3 million inhabitants. Since the conflict began in October 2023, the human toll continues to climb. Hamas has not been eliminated. Not all hostages have been freed. The promised "total victory" remains a horizon that retreats with every step forward.

What the Israel Defense Forces have succeeded in establishing, however, is a zone of permanent military control over the Philadelphi Corridor and the border areas. This ground reality, combined with Netanyahu's rhetoric about controlling 70 percent of Gaza, outlines a de facto annexation that dare not speak its name. Agence France-Presse has used the phrase "demographic cleansing" to describe what is happening in certain areas.

Southern Lebanon: the Litani River as the new de facto border

In southern Lebanon, Israel is maintaining a 600 km² buffer zone despite the June 19, 2026 ceasefire brokered by the United States, Qatar and Iran. Israel Katz ordered his troops to bulldoze Lebanese border villages. He declared that residents of that zone "will not return." That statement, made without ambiguity, describes a deliberate policy of depopulating the sovereign territory of a UN member state.

Hezbollah demands a full Israeli troop withdrawal as a precondition for any negotiation. Naim Qassem, Hezbollah's leader, was explicit: "Israeli troops remaining on Lebanese soil — that is impossible." Talks in Washington between Israeli and Lebanese delegations, opened on June 24 and mediated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are stalling on two points: the withdrawal timeline and the security guarantees Israel demands.

The US-Iran Agreement: A Constraint Israel Refuses to Honor

The Versailles MoU and its ignored clauses

The memorandum of understanding signed on June 17, 2026 in Versailles by President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is unambiguous in its language. Its first paragraph demands "the immediate and permanent cessation of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon." It binds all parties — including allies involved in the conflict. Israel is a US ally involved in the conflict in Lebanon. The equation is arithmetic.

Iran warned that Israel's continued presence renders the agreement "null and void." Hezbollah cites the presence of Israeli forces to justify its own ceasefire violations. American negotiators at Bürgenstock, in Switzerland, had to manage Netanyahu's provocations in real time — on Sunday, June 22, he published a statement threatening new strikes. The Iranian delegation walked out in protest before returning to the table. This diplomatic theater comes at a cost: the credibility of the entire agreement.

Trump caught between his ally and his deal

President Donald Trump finds himself in an uncomfortable position he likely did not anticipate. He wanted to sign a grand deal with Iran — the agreement that would define his diplomatic legacy. Yet his Israeli ally, by publicly declaring that it would ignore even American withdrawal requests, is undermining the very foundation of that deal. Trump told reporters he could "solve the problems very quickly," Netanyahu included. The reality on the ground contradicts that claim.

The tension between Washington and Jerusalem is visible in the details: the United States temporarily suspended some weapons deliveries to Israel. Netanyahu acknowledged this publicly, noting that he had simply informed Trump before the strikes against Iran rather than seeking his approval. That is not how an ally behaves — it is how an autonomous actor operates, exploiting the transatlantic relationship for its own ends.

International Law: A Convenient Fiction

Resolutions that were never enforced

UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, demanded the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon. It was never fully implemented. The international tribunal's 2016 ruling against China's claims in the South China Sea was ignored by Beijing. A global pattern is emerging: military powers only respect international legal rulings when it serves their interests. Israel, with the implicit — and sometimes explicit — backing of the United States, is no exception.

Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa called on Israel to withdraw from the 235 km² of Syrian territory the UN considers occupied. No binding mechanism exists to compel it. UNIFIL — the UN Interim Force in Lebanon — is deployed in the area but powerless against the Israeli army. The word "Interim" in its name, after decades of existence, is starting to read like a bitter joke.

The question of Lebanese sovereignty

The Lebanese government, the Lebanese army and the United Nations call what Israel holds what it is: an occupation. Israel calls it a "security zone." That semantic debate is not trivial: it determines the applicable legal framework. An occupation is illegal under international law unless it meets strict criteria. A security zone leaves room for interpretation. Netanyahu chooses his words with surgical precision.

Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer was even more direct: Israel "will not allow any terrorist force to approach its border," and any redeployment would come after, not before, Hezbollah's disarmament. That sets a precondition no one can meet on any realistic timeline. It is a sophisticated way of ensuring the withdrawal never happens.

Syria: The Forgotten Front of Territorial Expansion

Beyond the Golan, a presence that keeps growing

Israel's expansion in Syria is the least media-covered dimension of this three-front occupation. After the fall of the Assad regime in late 2024, Israel extended its military control well beyond the borders of the Golan Heights, which it has occupied since 1967. The newly controlled zone includes territories where Syrian civilians live — not evacuated, but facing checkpoints and daily tension.

This expansion violates the 1974 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Syria. It has triggered no formal condemnation from the Security Council. The Syrian interim government is too fragile to oppose it militarily. And the situations in Lebanon and Gaza monopolize international attention. The Syrian front of the Netanyahu doctrine has thus settled into relative diplomatic silence — which, precisely, makes it a model to be replicated.

The logic of precedent

What international law observers find most alarming is not the occupation itself but its progressive normalization. Every day that passes without an effective international response reinforces the precedent. "Buffer zones" equivalent to 5 percent of pre-1948 Israeli territory are being transformed into de facto borders. Israel is demolishing villages, building military roads and establishing permanent posts. That is not the behavior of an actor preparing to withdraw.

The Associated Press investigation published in June 2026 estimates this represents "the largest expansion of militarily occupied land in decades." In two and a half years, Israel has occupied more territory than in several preceding decades combined. That fact — documented, sourced, verifiable — deserves to be repeated until it becomes part of the global collective conscience.

The International Community: Between Powerlessness and Complicity

Institutions that institutionalize nothing

Where is the UN Security Council in this crisis? Paralyzed by the American veto, which blocks any binding resolution targeting Israel. Where is the International Court of Justice? It has issued rulings, but has no enforcement mechanism. Where is the European Union? Split between member states that openly support Israel and others calling for sanctions, it produces communiqués carefully crafted to offend no one.

The Arab League condemns. Gulf states calculate their economic interests. Turkey issues verbal condemnations. The United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy — the E4 — welcomed the US-Iran MoU without finding the words to demand that Israel honor it. That disconnect is either an admission of powerlessness or of bad faith. Either way, it feeds impunity.

Populations held hostage by this inaction

While diplomats negotiate in Washington and Bürgenstock, 1.2 million Lebanese cannot return home. Their villages sit inside an Israeli military zone whose government has declared they will not be expelled — but will not be allowed back, either. That is a policy of demographic fait accompli. The 2.3 million Gazans are surviving in conditions that humanitarian organizations describe as catastrophic. Syrian civilians in Israeli-controlled zones are living under foreign military occupation.

These populations are waiting for a way out of the crisis that the international community is incapable of offering. Not because it lacks legal tools — international law is clear. But because it lacks the political will to use them. Oxfam International documented in June 2026 that the war in the West Bank had already killed 1,244 Palestinians, including 268 children, since 2023. That is not an abstract statistic. Those are names, families, stories.

Netanyahu: War as an Instrument of Political Survival

A man who cannot afford peace

To understand Netanyahu's strategy, you have to understand his judicial and political situation. He is on trial for corruption. His governing coalition survives thanks to the far-right parties of Ben Gvir and Smotrich, whose voter base demands maximum territorial expansion. In September 2025, Bezalel Smotrich formally proposed annexing 82 percent of the occupied West Bank. That is not a fringe position within the ruling coalition — it is the platform.

Haim Ramon, a figure from the Israeli establishment, told Radio Galey in June 2026: "In the end, we haven't won. We haven't won in Lebanon, we haven't won in Iran and we haven't won against Hamas." That kind of lucidity is as courageous as it is devastating. But Netanyahu cannot afford to hear it. For him, admitting tactical failure means exposing himself to political defeat — and potentially to prison.

Permanent war as a survival strategy

Israeli analysts say it in barely veiled terms: Netanyahu needs war to stay in power. Not a victory — a war. Because a war justifies the state of exception, suspends elections, holds the coalition together, and grants the head of government a "wartime leader" status that transcends judicial contingencies. That logic is both profoundly perverse and profoundly human.

The June 25 phrase — "as long as necessary" — can be read on two levels. Geopolitically: as long as the security threat exists. Internally: as long as Netanyahu remains prime minister. He himself added, in a formulation widely commented on: "as long as I am prime minister." That is an inadvertent confession: the occupation lasts as long as he does.

The Axis of Impunity: Russia, China, Iran, Israel

When great powers violate international law

There is a troubling consistency in the geopolitical landscape of 2026: the actors who most openly violate international law are also those who enjoy the greatest impunity. Russia occupies Ukrainian territory. China is installing floating platforms at Scarborough Shoal. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz for several weeks. And Israel occupies Lebanese, Syrian and Gazan territory in violation of agreements its main ally just signed.

These actors do not operate in a vacuum: they watch each other, learn from each other, and calculate the cost of their violations based on international reaction. Every instance of impunity lowers the threshold for the next one. This is not a conspiracy theory — it is basic diplomatic mechanics. And 2026 will be remembered in the history books as the year several powers simultaneously tested the limits of the international order.

The cost to the international order

The question at stake is not just humanitarian — it is systemic. If the rules of international law only apply to weak actors, if great powers and their allies can ignore them with impunity, then those rules are no longer rules — they are suggestions. And a world without binding rules is a world where the law of the strongest applies without mediation. That is the real stakes of what Netanyahu declared on June 25, 2026 from an Israeli military base.

The phrase "as long as necessary" is not a national security declaration. It is a farewell to international legitimacy. And if this model becomes normalized — if other actors conclude they can do the same without consequences — then the architecture of peace patiently built since 1945 will crack a little further. For the generations who will live in that fractured world, this offhand remark at a graduation ceremony will have been a pivotal moment.

The Voices of Resistance Within Israel

An opposition struggling to be heard

It would be unfair and inaccurate to present Israel as a monolith behind Netanyahu. Parts of the Israeli security establishment — former generals and independent analysts — challenge the prime minister's strategy. Haim Ramon is not the only one saying the current wars have not produced a victory. Voices within the Shin Bet and the Mossad have, according to Israeli media, expressed reservations about the long-term viability of this policy.

But these voices are drowned out by the climate of war and by the political mechanics of the coalition. The Israeli opposition, torn and disorganized, has failed to formulate a credible alternative. And Israeli citizens, traumatized by October 7, 2023, remain largely opposed to any withdrawal that could be perceived as capitulation. The collective psychology of trauma is an extraordinarily powerful political tool — and Netanyahu wields it with mastery.

Civil society as the last line of defense

Israeli human rights organizations — Gisha, B'Tselem and international law attorneys — continue to document, litigate, and testify. This work is essential. It constitutes a record for history and a foundation for future legal challenges. But in the immediate term, it runs headlong into the logic of total war, which suspends ordinary constraints. Israeli civil society is paying a very heavy price for its courage.

Outside Israel, protests are erupting across Europe, the United States and the Arab world. Universities are severing partnerships. Artists are refusing to perform. These social signals do not change military decisions in the short term, but they shift the political calculus in the medium term. Israel's gradual isolation in certain Western circles is real, even if official governments remain cautious in their public statements.

Civilians: Humanity Placed on Hold

Behind the numbers, lives ground down

Numbers are necessary to grasp the scale. But they can also numb. So let's set the statistics aside for a moment. A family in Markaba, in southern Lebanon: their homes were bulldozed by Israeli soldiers according to the Lebanese National News Agency on June 26, 2026. A family in northern Gaza: surviving in a tent for months, dependent on humanitarian aid whose flow is rationed. A resident of the occupied Syrian strip: now living under a foreign army's authority, with no clear legal status.

These lives are the real stakes behind Netanyahu's phrase. "As long as necessary", for these people, means an indefinite period of displacement, fear, and uncertainty. Amnesty International documented in June 2026 the total or partial displacement of at least 117 Bedouin and pastoral Palestinian communities between January 2023 and April 2026. One hundred and seventeen communities. This is not war. It is demographic engineering.

The humanitarian emergency no one is solving

UN agencies — UNRWA, OCHA, UNICEF — have been sounding the alarm for months. Their reports describe a catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, deteriorating conditions in Lebanon, a Syrian population at a loss. Their funding appeals struggle to generate adequate responses. And their access to the hardest-hit areas is constantly obstructed by ongoing military operations.

Humanitarian aid cannot substitute for a political resolution. It can keep people alive — which is essential, absolutely essential. But it does not rebuild destroyed homes, does not return confiscated land, does not restore shattered families. There is no humanitarian solution to a political problem. And for now, the international community has no political solution — only intentions and communiqués.

The Netanyahu Model and Its Potential Imitators

An exportable doctrine

What makes the Netanyahu doctrine dangerous beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is its potential for export. It essentially says: if you have a powerful enough army and a compliant enough ally, you can occupy foreign territories in violation of international law, declare them security zones, and dare the international community to stop you. Russia tried this in Ukraine — with less success, thanks to Ukrainian resistance and Western support. But the temptation is there.

In the South China Sea, China is running a variant of this doctrine: gradual occupation, plausible deniability, presenting faits accomplis as normalcy. The difference from Netanyahu lies in the methods — China prefers floating platforms to tanks — but the underlying logic is identical. And if Israel succeeds in normalizing its occupations on three simultaneous fronts, Beijing will watch that lesson with great interest.

What the West must decide

The West must choose. It can continue applying international law selectively — firmly to Russia, more loosely to its allies — and accept the credibility consequences. Or it can decide that the rules-based order tolerates no exceptions and demand of Israel what it demands of Russia: withdrawal from illegally occupied territories. That is not an anti-Israel position. It is a pro-international-law position.

Netanyahu's "as long as necessary" will only become a serious political problem when Western democracies collectively decide it is one for them. For now, beyond expressions of concern, they absorb it. And every time they absorb it without consequences, they extend the duration of the tragedy for millions of civilians waiting for a way out of the crisis that no one seems in any rush to offer.

Toward Escalation or De-escalation?

The variables that could change the equation

Several factors could still shift the situation. First, American pressure: if Trump decides that Netanyahu's intransigence is seriously endangering his deal with Iran, he could use the economic and military leverage at his disposal — arms suspensions, funding pressure, threats to security guarantees. Nothing suggests he is ready to go that far, but the logic of his own deal pushes him in that direction.

Second, Israeli elections: Netanyahu must hold his coalition through the end of the parliamentary session, but Israeli politics is volatile. A change of government could alter the parameters. Third, ground resistance: neither Hezbollah, nor the remaining forces in Gaza, nor Syrian authorities are abandoning their claims. The Israeli occupation will remain costly — in lives, in money, in international legitimacy.

What I know and what I don't

I must be transparent: I do not know how this situation will unfold in the coming months. I do not know whether Trump will find the will to constrain Netanyahu. I do not know whether international pressure will reach a tipping point. I do not know whether a durable agreement between Israel and Lebanon is possible under current conditions. What I do know is that the simultaneous occupation of three foreign territories, declared permanent by those carrying it out, is not an acceptable normal — even if it risks becoming a durable reality.

And what I also know is that history tends to vindicate those who hold positions of principle over time, even when the short-term balance of power seems to prove them wrong. The colonial empires that believed they would last forever all eventually packed up and left. The question is not whether Israeli occupation will end — all occupations end. The question is at what human cost and over what length of time.

The Human Cost of Three Occupations: What the Numbers Actually Say

Gaza: a territory demographically transformed

The human cost of the occupation of Gaza since October 2023 is now documented by multiple independent sources. The UN International Commission of Inquiry published on June 23, 2026 a report establishing that at least 20,179 Palestinian children have been killed. The majority of Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants have been displaced at least once since the conflict began. Infrastructure — hospitals, water systems, housing — has been destroyed to a degree that makes reconstruction measurable in decades, not years.

This picture is not a political opinion. It is the documented result of specific military and political decisions, made by identified individuals, within a precise legal framework. When Minister Israel Katz declares that security zones will be "cleared of their inhabitants," he is explicitly describing a policy of forced displacement that international humanitarian law defines with precision. The words exist. The documented reality exists. What is missing is the international political will to name it.

Lebanon and Syria: the fronts the world stopped counting

In southern Lebanon, more than one million Lebanese have been displaced according to UN figures. UNIFIL has documented more than 7,000 violations of Lebanese airspace since the official cessation of hostilities. In Syria, Israeli forces occupy approximately 1,500 km², well beyond the Golan zone annexed in 1981. The 1974 disengagement agreement — which the UN continued to invoke as recently as June 22, 2026 — has never been violated more thoroughly, in spirit and letter alike.

These figures are separately documented. Together, they paint the reality of a state that has simultaneously launched large-scale military operations on three fronts, transformed occupied territories into permanent control zones, and publicly declared its intention to hold them "as long as necessary." ISM France calculated that the territories under Israeli control today represent the largest land seizure by Israel in decades. That is not rhetoric. It is a measurable surface area.

The International Community and the Double Standard: The Vertigo of Incoherence

Two wars of occupation — two international responses

Since February 24, 2022, the West has mobilized extraordinary resources to support Ukraine against Russian occupation. The reasoning is sound: a military occupation of a sovereign territory is a violation of international law that cannot be accepted. The sanctions, the weapons deliveries, the diplomatic support — all of it was morally and legally coherent.

That same West applies radically different standards to Israel's situation in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. The sanctions do not come. Arms deliveries continue — in some cases despite warnings from the governments' own legal advisers. And public statements remain in the register of "deep concern" and "calls for calm" that have never modified any military behavior. The Arab League, the African Union and the OIC issued a joint condemnation on June 24, 2026. The West managed its communications.

What this double standard costs the international order

The inconsistency in applying international law is not just a moral problem. It has real strategic consequences. Every time the West applies the law selectively, it reinforces the argument that Moscow, Beijing and Tehran use to justify their own violations: "why us?" That is not a strong argument on the merits. But it is an effective one in the capitals of the Global South that wonder why the rules seem to apply only to certain actors.

Consistency is not simply a moral value. It is the structural foundation of a credible international order. A West that defends Ukraine rightly but refuses to criticize Israel for similarly documented violations will not only lose allies on a particular file. It will progressively lose the capacity to speak in the name of the principles it claims to uphold. And without that capacity, the next Ukraine — whoever that turns out to be — may find that the support was more conditional than it appeared.

Conclusion: The World in 2026 Needs Principles, Not Arrangements

A declaration that defines an era

Netanyahu's phrase from June 25, 2026 will endure. It defines an era, a doctrine, a worldview. It says that national security can justify the permanent military occupation of foreign territories — with no withdrawal horizon, no negotiated agreement, no international mandate. It says that agreements signed by allies are optional. It says that force overrides law.

That philosophy is not new — it is as old as power politics itself. What is new is that it is being claimed openly by the leader of an allied Western democracy, at a military ceremony filmed and broadcast around the world. And the world, by and large, responded with an eloquent silence.

The urgency of a collective response

That silence cannot last indefinitely. The 1.2 million displaced Lebanese deserve better. The people of Gaza deserve better. Syrians under military occupation deserve better. And the rules-based international order — imperfect, slow, frustrating, but real — deserves better than the systematic normalization of its circumvention by the most powerful actors. The international community has the tools. What it has not yet found is the will to use them.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency box

Who I am and where I speak from

I am Maxime Marquette, a columnist and analyst specializing in Middle East geopolitics and international law. I am neither of Israeli nor Palestinian origin. I have not been present in these territories. My analysis is grounded in publicly verifiable sources — official statements, reports from international organizations, journalistic investigations from recognized media outlets. I am pro-Ukraine and pro-international law, which requires applying the same rules to all actors.

My biases and my uncertainties

I regard international law as a legitimate normative framework that should be applied consistently. I am critical of any military occupation policy that escapes international conflict-resolution mechanisms. I am aware that my perspective is that of a Western observer, with the blind spots that entails. I do not claim to have access to confidential information about ongoing negotiations. The territorial occupation figures cited come from specialized sources (Carnegie Middle East Center, Gisha, AP) and may evolve. Israel's real security context must not be erased from any analysis — but it does not justify every political decision.

Sources

Primary sources

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

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

Middle East Eye — Israeli forces to remain in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza 'without limit' — June 26, 2026

The Eastern Herald — Netanyahu Vows Israel Will Keep Troops in Southern Lebanon 'As Long as I Am Prime Minister' — June 26, 2026

Secondary sources

Ahram Online/AP — Israel grabbed more land from Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon since 2023 than it has in decades — June 18, 2026

Al Jazeera — What Israeli and Lebanese officials are saying before Washington talks — June 23, 2026

Times of Israel — Netanyahu vows to maintain IDF presence in Lebanon even as issue rocks US-Iran talks — June 21, 2026

Libnanews — Ceasefire in southern Lebanon: conditions from Israel, Hezbollah, Iran — June 21, 2026