Aymun Moosavi
The Israeli Occupation has once again sharpened its focus on Lebanon to realise its vision of territorial expansion. In turning a colonial mirror toward Lebanon, it seeks to replicate the same parameters of control long imposed on Palestine. This time, however, the mirror is not just externally imposed. It is held up by the Lebanese government itself, which acts increasingly as the Zionist entity’s co-conspirator, trading sovereignty for alignment with the US-Israeli alliance.
This fragile ceasefire has instead become a cover for continued destruction in the south, carried out with impunity. In the hills of South Lebanon, a new battle has emerged between those who uphold the status quo of the occupation’s expansionism and the resistance, which remains the only meaningful obstacle.
Colonial Mirroring: The Palestine Playbook
Colonial strategies may evolve in form, but they remain unchanged in essence. The ultimate objective is repetitive: isolate, fragment, and encircle until populations are exhausted and the resistance is cut off from wider networks. Lebanon is no exception.
Former Israeli Occupation Strategic Minister Ron Dermer proposed a plan to divide Lebanon into three zones in preparation for long-term occupation:
- Direct Israeli Occupation military control up to a “Forward Line of Defense,” encircling the territory in a Gaza-like model.
- A buffer zone up to the Litani River, where it would conduct operations against Hezbollah, mirroring West Bank-style fragmentation.
- A northern zone where the Lebanese Army would be tasked with disarming Hezbollah, effectively transforming it into an extension of the Israeli Occupation’s security, as seen with the Palestinian Authority.
The proposed 10km “Forward Defense Line” echoing Gaza’s Yellow Line represents yet another act of colonial imposition, drawing boundaries across land it has no authority to claim. As in Gaza, such lines are not defensive but preparatory: enabling the expansion of military infrastructure, outpost construction, and control over potential economic assets such as the Qana gas field, laying the foundation for prolonged occupation.
Israeli Occupation officials have made this intent explicit. References have been made openly to the “Rafah, and Beit Hanoun model,” signaling a desire not only for control but for systematic destruction and depopulation.
These plans have not gone uncontested. The Lebanese resistance is currently the only barrier. Reports suggest that the resistance has carried out dozens of sustained attacks since 22nd April, including rocket launches into northern settlements and operations against invading Israeli Occupation forces at an unprecedented rate. The occupation has been forced to return to a pre-October 7 containment strategy, carrying out symbolic strikes rather than aiming for decisive military outcomes. Key units have already been withdrawn as the Israeli Occupation enters a new phase of limited engagement.
At the same time, Hezbollah’s use of low-cost, “micro-tactical” drones has disrupted Israel’s advanced military capabilities, exposing vulnerabilities in systems such as the Arrow missile defence and limiting the operational effectiveness of the F-35 aircraft. This reality has revealed a familiar pattern in recent years: asymmetric warfare repeatedly undermines technological superiority.
Isolation as Strategy
Unable to impose a full territorial encirclement, the Zionist entity has turned to infrastructural isolation. By targeting bridges and transport routes, it seeks to sever the south from the rest of Lebanon, cutting communities off from essential services and economic life. This marks a continuation of tactics used throughout the 1980s,1990s, and most notably during the 2006 war, to disrupt civilian life and isolate resistance strongholds, effectively weaponising geography to impose collective punishment.
Lebanon’s strategic position has made it central to the Axis’s connectivity. Attacks on internal infrastructure have been accompanied by threats to key border crossings, including the Masnaa border crossing with Syria, to sever Lebanon’s strategic depth. Regional developments have only compounded this.
In practice, Syria’s new leadership facilitated the Israeli Occupation’s broader strategic objectives by also attempting to cut off these resistance networks. Israel’s settler colonial model is not bound to Palestine – it is regional. It relies on fragmentation, dependency, and the creation of vassal states that secure objectives on its behalf.
The Illusion of Ceasefire
The occupation’s conduct is hardly a surprise – It is a state born from the colonial imagination. Even its borders remain undefined, making expansion a permanent possibility rather than an exception. However, what is more striking is the response, or lack thereof, by the Lebanese government. A state that is ready to carry out its basic function of protecting its own sovereignty is expected to resist. The Lebanese government has proven both incapable and unwilling to.
Rather than resisting, it has engaged in normalisation talks under the guise of negotiation. Yet, negotiations without leverage are simply concessions in disguise. Where other states, like Iran, engaged in parallel negotiations using strategic pressure to secure outcomes, Lebanon has entered talks empty-handed. President Joseph Aoun’s admission that even basic infrastructure repairs in the south required Israeli Occupation permission reflects a state aware of encroachment, yet unwilling to confront it.
The initial ceasefire achieved in Lebanon was solely through Iranian pressure, which forcefully linked Lebanon’s fate to the Strait of Hormuz, making it a condition to loosen Iran’s chokehold on the global energy artery. This was not only a symbolic gesture but also the deliberate use of a pressure lever to secure objectives for the region.
The relocation of negotiations away from actors with leverage toward Washington reinforces this posture. In doing so, Lebanon not only undermines its own position but violates its own legal framework, including the 1955 boycott law and Article 285 of the penal code, both of which work to criminalise direct engagement with the Zionist entity.
Even more concerning is the attempt to reimpose the November 2024 ceasefire, an agreement which was repeatedly violated by the occupation, effectively accepting a framework in which the south absorbs the cost of war while the capital remains shielded.
A State Turned Inward
“Some hold us accountable for deciding to go to negotiations on the pretext of the lack of national consensus, and I ask: When you went to war, did you first obtain national consensus?” – President Joseph Aoun statement, 27th April
This question was posed unironically, as if resistance manifested before colonial aggression. It completely glosses over not only continuous Israeli Occupation violations but also its history of aggression against Lebanon, which caused the resistance to form in the first place.
President Aoun’s words increasingly sound as though they are delivered through a Zionist speakerphone. His call earlier this year to confiscate Hezbollah’s weapons and seize depots during an ongoing escalation shows a willingness to turn the Lebanese army’s scope inward, transforming it into an extension of the occupation’s security apparatus. Rather than confronting true external threats to sovereignty, the army is expected to serve a foreign cause, redefining national defence into internal suppression. The attack on Hezbollah under the pretext of creating a single, strong national army cannot be achieved when the threat itself is misunderstood.
In typical divide-and-rule fashion, Washington has identified this schism between the resistance and the Lebanese government, which it seeks to deepen. On 28th April, Marco Rubio stated that the US was creating a plan to train units of the Lebanese army to disarm Hezbollah while taking the burden off the Israeli Occupation, positioning national institutions as instruments of external policy rather than primary protectors of state sovereignty. As usual, the US-Israeli vision for the region relies on docile governments that are willing to carry out their objectives for them.
The Disconnect
“What we are doing is not treason; rather, treason is committed by those who take their country to war to achieve foreign interests.” President Joseph Aoun’s statement, 27th April
The Lebanese government’s actions present a fundamental disconnect: a perception of the south as separate from the rest of the nation. One that is tolerated for being unstable rather than defended as an integral part of Lebanese sovereignty.
Yet, history suggests otherwise. Israeli Occupation incursions have traditionally never been contained. From illegal territory seizure after the Oslo Accords in Palestine, to the occupation of South Lebanon, and a massacre in Beirut now etched in history as “Black Wednesday,” escalations have consistently expanded beyond the initial boundaries. The assumption that territorial concession will produce stability, or a pseudo-security arrangement with the US-Israeli alliance, ignores an important reality. Expansion is incremental, and each concession paves the way for the next step towards further control.
Misplaced Threats
Together, these developments paint a larger picture: the US, the Israeli Occupation, and now the Lebanese government have converged in identifying the resistance as a common threat. In aligning itself with the US bloc, the government joins forces with both parties to sever Hezbollah from the wider Axis and dismantle the strength of the only faction currently protecting against Zionist expansionism.
But this alignment rests on a flawed premise.
As with the Gulf states, the problem lies in the perception of threat. The true threat does not originate internally. It has been shaped by decades of external pressure, occupation, and expansionism. Resistance did not create the conflict – it emerged from it. Trading sovereignty for mere partnership does not actually offer protection but opens the door to an expansion of Washington’s trampled footprint over its soil.
Perhaps the real problem is not seeing a threat to sovereignty as a threat at all. The fall of Syria provides a telling example. The Axis was not the only group to suffer a blow when it was severed from its strategic hub in late 2024. Regional states also suffered in the long term as the Israeli Occupation secured one key piece of its Greater Israel puzzle. What was once a strategic pillar has become a platform for the occupation’s operations, where Syrian airspace is used to carry out assaults against neighbouring nations. Its strategic hills serve as vantage points to overlook and attack neighbouring territories. Lebanon’s security was destroyed. Syria went from being a pillar of resistance to being an extension of the occupation. Its guns, once pointed at the occupation, are now pointed at the wider region, waiting for the occupation’s call. Syria’s example demonstrates how quickly sovereignty can be reconfigured when external influence goes unchallenged.
Lebanon now stands at a similar crossroads. What was presented as a ceasefire is in reality a restructuring of control. Beneath the surface lies a gradual erosion of sovereignty facilitated not only by external force but also by internal acquiescence.
Aymun Moosavi is a geopolitical analyst with a background in international conflict studies and history, focused on deconstructing current political narratives and social issues projected in the mainstream.
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