Throughout its wars with neighbouring Arab states, Israel has repeatedly captured territory, which it has often gave back.
The clearest example is the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel first captured from Egypt during the 1956 Suez Crisis, before withdrawing in stages and completing its withdrawal in March 1957 under intense international pressure. Israel captured Sinai again during the Six-Day War in 1967 and occupied it for more than a decade. Following the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, Israel withdrew in stages, completing its final withdrawal from Sinai on 25 April 1982.
Israel has followed a different course with the Golan Heightsin Syria, most of which it captured in 1967. Israel effectively annexed the territory in 1981, a move that remains unrecognised by most of the international community. According to the United Nations, approximately 1,260 square kilometres of the occupied Syrian Golan remain under Israeli control, but Israel has expanded these borders even further to the Al-Quneitra governate following the Syrian Revolution.
Following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, Israeli forces moved beyond the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and seized the 1974 UN-monitored area of separation inside Syria, including the Syrian side of Mount Hermon and positions in Quneitra Governorate. The original buffer zone covers roughly 235 square kilometres, while subsequent Israeli deployments and operations outside it have been estimated to have brought around 400 square kilometres of additional Syrian territoryl. Israel has also established military positions outside the original area of separation.
Israel says the Syrian deployment is necessary to prevent hostile forces from establishing themselves close to its border and has demanded the demilitarisation of southern Syria. Syria considers the deployment an occupation and has repeatedly demanded an Israeli withdrawal. Netanyahu and Israeli defence officials have meanwhile indicated that troops could remain in the newly occupied Syrian security zone for an indefinite period.
Israel has also occuppied a large part of southern Lebanon with its forces having reached as far as Taybeh, which Israel has declared a special military zone after ordering the evacuation of its civilians. Effectivelly, Israeli is currently occuping up to 600 kilometres squared of territory in Southern Lebanon.
A US-mediated framework agreed between Israel and Lebanon in June now envisages a gradual Israeli withdrawal linked directly to the disarmament of Hezbollah and the deployment of the Lebanese Army. Israel has stated that it has no territorial ambitions in Lebanon, but the agreement allows Israeli forces to remain in the security zone until those conditions are fulfilled.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israel has expanded its military occupation of the Palestinian enclave.
Under the US-brokered ceasefire, the so-called Yellow Line was supposed to demarcate Israeli-controlled territory while negotiations proceeded towards Hamas’s disarmament, Palestinian civilian administration and an eventual Israeli withdrawal. Instead, the line has repeatedly moved further into Gaza, with the IDF now occupying up to 70% of Gaza.
The Israeli Prime Minister is now openly refusing to carry out further withdrawals until Hamas is completely disarmed and is resisting the US-brokered roadmap, which envisages Israeli forces withdrawing sector by sector as Hamas relinquishes and decommissions its weapons, while an international stabilisation force takes over security responsibilities.
The US-brokered agreement is still not in effect, as Israel keeps expanding its occupation in Gaza while Hamas refuses to surrender and disarm.
Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has occupied up to 1,200 square kilometres of territory under direct military control. This does not include the continued expansion of Israeli settlements into the West Bank and the Palestinian territories, which is further reducing the possibility of the creation of a Palestinian state, and which Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly said will not be established under his watch.
Newsroom
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