Benjamin Netanyahu Calls It an Opening for Peace While Israel Digs In Across South Lebanon

At a state memorial marking three years since the October 7 attacks, Benjamin Netanyahu (opens in a new tab) said Israel would continue striking Hezbollah and would "create an opportunity for peace" with Lebanon.

The material reality described from south Lebanon points in the opposite direction: preparation for staying.

Asharq Al-Awsat reported that Israeli forces were fortifying positions, improving access roads and preparing compounds for winter. Southern Lebanese security sources put the number of established Israeli positions at 17. The report said buildings used by troops had been equipped with generators, air conditioning and sanitary facilities, while Israeli forces were expanding a cleared or dangerous zone toward a second line of villages north of what Israel calls the "Yellow Line."

Those measures matter because temporary battlefield positions and infrastructure designed for prolonged occupation are not the same thing. Logistics reveal expectations. A force that expects to leave soon does not need the same winterized compounds, road network and enduring observation infrastructure as a force preparing to remain.

That does not settle the legal status of every position or prove a permanent annexation plan. It does, however, create a direct accountability question around territorial revisionism (opens in a new tab) and forced displacement (opens in a new tab): when does a buffer justified as security become a territorial system that prevents civilians from safely returning?

The tension is especially sharp because the relevant diplomatic baseline already exists. The 2024 Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire (opens in a new tab) was supposed to reduce armed activity in southern Lebanon and create conditions for state institutions to reassert control. Continued Hezbollah military capacity is part of that failure. So are Israeli strikes and any durable military presence that extends beyond what the agreement permits.

Netanyahu's formulation - more strikes now to create peace later - asks the public to accept a familiar causal promise: military pressure will produce a safer political order. The burden is on his government to show where that transition occurs. If each security concern produces another fortified position, another cleared village and another extension of military geography, then "temporary" can become a policy without ever being formally declared.

The welfare effects are not abstract. Villages rendered unsafe remain empty. Families remain displaced. Agricultural land, roads and local commerce become contingent on military decisions. The longer that condition persists, the harder return becomes even if major fighting subsides.

The same logic applies to Hezbollah. Armed infrastructure in civilian areas exposes communities to further attack and obstructs the restoration of normal state authority. But Hezbollah's responsibility does not remove Israel's responsibility for the territory it controls or strikes.

A genuine path to peace should reduce the number of civilians living under military constraint. If the physical footprint of military control grows while the rhetoric of peace becomes louder, the footprint deserves more attention than the slogan.