The IDF is occupying Lebanon and Syria, while Israelis build “settlements in all but name” in Cyprus
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has just approved more than a dozen new Jewish settlements in the West Bank. But this latest wave of expansion is just the beginning, as different factions within Israel want to push its borders further into Lebanon, Syria, and beyond.
In early July, Netanyahu approved plans to establish 13 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. The settlements will be constructed along the main north-south road linking the Palestinian cities of Nablus, Ramallah, and Bethlehem, which is already dotted with dozens of settler outposts. The majority of these were illegally constructed, then retroactively legalized by the Israeli government over the last two decades.
As of mid-2026, there are approximately 350 Israeli settlements and outposts in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, with around 700,000 settlers living on Palestinian land. This colonization of the West Bank was ruled illegal by the International Criminal Court in 2024, with the court’s 15 justices agreeing that “the transfer by Israel of settlers to the West Bank and Jerusalem as well as Israel’s maintenance of their presence, is contrary to article 49 of the fourth Geneva Convention.”
Netanyahu and his hardline coalition partners reject this ruling, and consider the West Bank and East Jerusalem – which Israel seized during the 1967 Six-Day War – to be “our homeland.”
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, the Israeli prime minister hinted that his territorial ambitions also extend into Lebanon.
Lebanon in Israel’s sights
Israeli forces currently occupy around 600 sq km of southern Lebanon. Under the current framework deal between Israel and Lebanon, the Israeli military will withdraw from Lebanese territory once Hezbollah is disarmed. Hezbollah has shown no intention of disarming and has rejected the deal as “null and void.” However, even if the militant group were to lay down its weapons, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said last week that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will likely remain in southern Lebanon “indefinitely in order to protect our residents and communities from jihadist elements.”
Netanyahu went a step further in his interview with Fox, claiming that some Christian villages in Lebanon “have actually asked to be annexed to Israel because we protect them against the Hezbollah fanatics who want to kill them.”
Netanyahu: We also take care of our friends, especially the Christians in the Middle East. The Christian villages in Lebanon, some of them have actually asked to be annexed to Israel. We protect Christians in the Middle East pic.twitter.com/SyeCM2PHMm
“It’s not only the Christians in Lebanon who asked for our protection. It’s the Druze, it’s Muslims, the Sunni Muslims, and quite a few of the Shiite Muslims too,” he continued, adding that “they’d like to free Lebanon.”
Netanyahu did not specify which Christian villages he was referring to, or whether he had spoken to any Christian officials in Lebanon. “No village in the south has made such a request,” Hanna al-Amil, president of the Christian municipality of Rmeish, told L’Orient-Le Jour on Monday. A separate statement signed by 15 villages in southern Lebanon described Netanyahu’s remarks as “completely fabricated” and “unrelated to reality.”
Hezbollah is not an anti-Christian organization, and its members have fought alongside Christians against incursions from Syrian Islamic State jihadists. As such, Netanyahu’s statement may be an attempt to legitimize the “indefinite” military presence in Lebanon envisioned by the Israeli Defense Ministry.
Settlers target Syria
As Netanyahu spoke to Fox News on Sunday, the IDF arrested around 100 settlers after they left an Israeli-occupied ‘buffer zone’ in southern Syria and set up camp on Syrian territory. The settlers – members of a group called the HaBashan Pioneers – have tried to set up an outpost on Syrian territory three times over the last year, with the IDF thwarting all three attempts.
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