This month’s Israeli elections may escalate rather than wind down the Israeli military occupation of southern Lebanon.

Israel’s presence in Lebanon is becoming the next indefinite occupation in the Middle East, with serious implications not only for Lebanese and Israelis alike but also for the region’s broader geopolitical dynamics. This week, the United States hosted Israeli and Lebanese diplomats for the eighth round of negotiations under the Trilateral Framework established in June. The talks again failed to produce any progress, leaving serious questions about the status of Israel’s illegal occupation of Lebanese territory and its war with Hezbollah. 

Israel’s occupation has been ongoing since October 2024, when it invaded Lebanon to end Hezbollah’s cross-border strikes on its territory. Contrary to what much of the media describes, Israeli military operations have not ceased, even during negotiation sessions, despite two would-be ceasefires that have existed on paper only. The resulting fighting has produced thousands of Lebanese deaths and injuries and tens in Israel and, at one point, displaced well over 1 million people in Lebanon. Upwards of 350,000 Lebanese remain displaced, as many more who have “returned” are not back in their homes. The reason is clear: Israel has established a so-called “buffer zone” in southern Lebanon, razing entire villages while preventing the displaced from returning.

Publicly, the framework negotiations are meant to produce two outcomes: the sustainable and verifiable disarmament of Hezbollah and Israel’s withdrawal from sovereign Lebanese territory. So far, those goals remain out of reach, largely due to neither Israel nor Hezbollah’s interest in seeing them through, viewing the conflict through a zero-sum lens. Hezbollah’s exclusion from the talks and open rejection of them constitute major factors explaining the lack of progress.

For Hezbollah, resisting Israeli occupation and operations in Lebanon constitutes its raison d’être, and it continues to believe it can outwait both Israel’s occupation and the current reform government of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who wish to see Hezbollah’s disarmament. The group’s reasoning certainly follows historical experience. Israel’s occupation of parts of Lebanon between 1982 and 2000 proved an abject failure that led to the formation of Hezbollah. That history and its resistance mantra simply won’t allow for disarmament amid an Israeli occupation.

Israel, meanwhile, has adopted an absolutist national security strategy in the post-October 7, 2023 era, establishing buffer zones in Lebanon and Syria while expanding its illegal occupation of Palestine and bombing numerous Middle Eastern states over the last three years. This approach has widespread support in Israeli society, with nearly 80 percent of Jewish Israelis supportive of operations in Lebanon, likely explaining why senior officials in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet have proclaimed that these occupations will be “indefinite.” With Knesset elections one week out, no major Israeli political parties in the Zionist camp are espousing anti-war or pro-peace narratives. Instead, they compete to see who can adopt the most militarized platform.

Israel, ahead of the summit, has therefore aimed to spoil negotiations, launching a public campaign accusing the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) of not only failing to disarm Hezbollah in areas under its control, but of coordinating with the group to avoid any real disarmament effort. The goal here is as transparent as it is bad faith: Israel hopes to force the Lebanese delegation into a defensive position, forcing it to vindicate its actions within the framework agreement instead of noting Israel’s spoiler role.

And what a spoiler it is. Israel effectively holds veto power over the framework’s implementation, as it decides when it withdraws from areas within Lebanon and determines, alongside the United States, when disarmament in those areas is sufficient. For a country uninterested in leaving Lebanon anytime soon, it is inherently incentivized to prolong the process while undermining Lebanese efforts to implement its withdrawal, as this author argued when the Trilateral Framework was first signed.

At this stage, this “pilot zone” process appears dead in the water unless Washington intervenes seriously, which remains highly unlikely. The administration of US President Donald Trump, while willing to pressure Netanyahu and the Israeli state when it views such actions as advancing its interests, remains the most pro-Israel government in US history. The Trump White House often views these interests as intertwined with Israel or, at minimum, does not view it as existential to counter Israel in most instances. On the eve of midterm elections, and entering what increasingly appears to be a period of strong opposition politics in the United States should Democratic Party electoral success match current polling, suggests the Trump administration may be quick to leave Lebanon on the back burner as it plans to escalate against Iran directly, likely after the midterm elections.

In this context, the Trilateral Framework talks in the United States were always destined to fail, prolonging a disastrous situation for Lebanese and Israelis alike as war remains the true language of policy.

Allowing the war to linger in such a manner would be a mistake. Leaving one of the Middle East’s hottest conflict zones open to escalation in an interconnected theater puts innocent people and US interests at risk. The longer inaction or an acceptance of the status quo on the ground persists, the harder it will become to untangle. This exact scenario is what produced Israel’s 18-year occupation of its northern neighbor, fostering the rise of Hezbollah and the very problems emanating from and informing the current war today.

Yet the situation resembles neither 1982 nor 2000. The drivers of today’s conflict emanate from occupied Palestine just as much as they do from Iran, Lebanon, or Israel. Far-right, ultranationalist politics has taken hold in Israel in ways that did not exist in the same format or at the same scale as in the past, leaving far too much runway for potentially disastrous developments across the Middle East.

In this regard, Israel’s ongoing occupation of Lebanon could transform into a deeper and more expanded Israeli presence in the country after election season. Netanyahu has resorted to desperate gambles to stay in power, especially to avoid corruption cases that could tarnish his legacy and land him in jail. Many of the Israeli opposition parties espouse equally hawkish, if not more hawkish, views on Hezbollah, so a change in government does not guarantee progress on the conflict. Indeed, all signs point to escalation.

We must avoid that outcome at all costs. While the talks in the United States under the Trilateral Framework offered possibly the last major chance to address these issues face-to-face, the Trump administration can and should pressure Israel to withdraw from Lebanon immediately. Washington has the capacity and leverage to pressure Israel to abide by the agreement, as this author has previously outlined. Unfortunately, the odds of real progress remain low, leaving a hardening, indefinite status quo defined by war, occupation, and brutality in place for the foreseeable future.

About the Author: Alexander Langlois

Alexander Langlois is a foreign policy analyst and the senior editor at DAWN. He is focused on the geopolitics of the Levant and the broader dynamics of West Asia. Langlois holds a Master of Arts degree in International Affairs from American University. He has written for various outlets, including The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Sada, the Atlantic Council’s MENASource, the Lowy Institute, the Gulf International Forum, The New Arab, The Nation, and Inkstick. Follow him on X: @langloisajl.

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