Israel seizes 1,000 sq km under Benjamin Netanyahu’s war strategy

{"text":[[{"start":13.35,"text":"Israel has seized about 1,000 sq km of territory since Hamas’s October 7 attack as Benjamin Netanyahu forged a new, more aggressive military doctrine in the wake of the nation’s worst security failure."}],[{"start":27.15,"text":"Israeli forces have established positions in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, taking control of land equivalent to roughly 5 per cent of Israel’s 1949 borders, according to FT calculations."}],[{"start":40.5,"text":"While the approach of Netanyahu’s far-right government has been cheered by ultranationalist settlers, who have long sought to expand Israel’s borders, the offensives have displaced millions, destroyed urban areas and sparked deep unease in the region."}],[{"start":54.9,"text":"More than half the roughly 1,000 sq km is in southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces have advanced as much as a dozen kilometres to create what officials call a “security zone”. Their aim is to push Hizbollah back so the militant group might struggle to fire anti-tank missiles at Israel’s border communities."}],[{"start":75.95,"text":"“This buffer zone completely removes the near threat of invasion and anti-tank fire,” Netanyahu said last month. “They wanted to surround us with a ring of fire; we created a ring of security.”"}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":88.45,"text":"The rest of the land is split between Gaza, where Israeli forces now occupy more than half the Palestinian enclave, and Syria, where Israeli forces took advantage of the Assad regime’s collapse to take positions several kilometres inside the country. "}],[{"start":103.9,"text":"However, unlike in Gaza and Lebanon, where Israel has issued maps, in Syria, neither Israeli nor Syrian officials have been explicit about where the troops are located."}],[{"start":114.45,"text":"In each of the three territories, Israeli forces also exert control over additional stretches of land by air strikes, artillery fire, raids and detentions."}],[{"start":124.45,"text":"In Gaza, Israeli forces are enforcing an additional buffer zone beyond the so-called Yellow Line that separates the part of Gaza under Israeli control from that still controlled by Hamas. A UN official said the additional zone was about 50-100 metres deep, further shrinking the enclave. It leaves Gaza’s 2mn citizens crammed into about 40 per cent of its prewar territory."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":147.85,"text":"In southern Lebanon, Israel has continued to strike and ordered Lebanese to leave areas north of where its soldiers are present, with defence minister Israel Katz pledging to exert control in this way over territory up to the river Litani. "}],[{"start":162.7,"text":"In Syria, Israeli forces have carried out raids beyond the positions they have taken up near the border, including one outlier 50km into Syrian territory. The FT calculated Israel’s ongoing military presence by mapping confirmed IDF bases in the area. The area covers approximately 233 sq km, from the strategic high ground of Mount Hermon in the north to an abandoned Syrian army base at Maariyah more than 70km to the south."}],[{"start":193.25,"text":"The IDF declined to comment on the calculations, but said troops were “deployed in border-adjacent areas and across various operational zones”. “Their deployment is carried out in line with the directives of the political echelon and ongoing operational situational assessments,” it said."}],[{"start":210.35,"text":"Israeli officials have made clear they intend to hold a permanent buffer zone in Gaza, and have razed huge swaths of land along its border with Israel. But they have sent different messages to different audiences about Lebanon. "}],[{"start":223.6,"text":"Netanyahu said publicly last month that Israeli forces were “not leaving”, and in recent weeks the military has been razing entire villages near the border in an operation Katz has compared with the “model in Gaza”. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":236.85,"text":"But diplomats say that, in private, Israeli officials, including foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar, insist Israel has no territorial ambitions in Lebanon."}],[{"start":246.7,"text":"Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Netanyahu who is now a fellow at the Jinsa think-tank in Washington, said he expected Israel would permanently keep a buffer zone “of between one mile and two kilometres” in Gaza. "}],[{"start":260.5,"text":"He said Israeli forces would remain in Lebanon “at least until the stage in which Hizbollah will be disarmed” — a scenario that Lebanese officials and analysts are sceptical can happen any time soon."}],[{"start":272.75,"text":"Israel can be “more flexible” in Syria, Amidror added, noting Israel had established a buffer zone to prevent hostile actors setting up close to the border, rather than to counter an already present threat. “It very much depends on what agreements we will have with the [new regime],” he said."}],[{"start":291.65,"text":"Israel and Syria have tried to negotiate a security agreement throughout the past year, but talks have stalled over Israel’s insistence on maintaining a presence inside Syrian territory, Syrian officials have said. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":304.65,"text":"Other observers said much would depend on the whims of US President Donald Trump. “If he orders Netanyahu to withdraw from south Lebanon, or Syria or even from Gaza, I think he will have to obey,” said Michael Milshtein, a former military intelligence officer now at Tel Aviv University."}],[{"start":321.09999999999997,"text":"Publicly, regional officials are adamant they will not accept an ongoing Israeli occupation of their territory. “Our goal is clear: . . . achieve Israeli withdrawal,” Lebanon’s president Joseph Aoun said last month, following direct talks between his state and Israel. "}],[{"start":335.99999999999994,"text":"But in private, they acknowledge the risk that the arrangements could become permanent. “Israel keeps pushing and pushing on to our land and no one is stopping them,” said one Lebanese official. “They want to stay indefinitely and treat southern Lebanon as their backyard and they can do it so long as no one tells them no.”"}],[{"start":354.59999999999997,"text":"Those fears have been fuelled by rhetoric from far-right figures in Israel’s government and prominent members of its settler movement, who have expressed territorial ambitions that extend beyond Israel’s current borders."}],[{"start":367.65,"text":"Settler leaders, including ultranationalist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, have demanded Israel re-establish Jewish settlements in Gaza, while nearly a third of ministers in Netanyahu’s cabinet attended a conference on the topic in 2024. Settlers have also repeatedly attempted to enter Gaza, Syria and Lebanon in order to establish a presence there."}],[{"start":390.04999999999995,"text":"Meanwhile, Smotrich has called for Israel to make the Litani, which at its deepest point runs as much as 30km north of the de facto frontier between Israel and Lebanon, the “new border” between the two countries. Last month, a group of 20 MPs led by a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, called on the government to occupy the entire area south of the Litani and empty it of its Lebanese population."}],[{"start":414.29999999999995,"text":"Such views remain a minority position in Israeli politics. But the moves have sparked alarm in Israel’s neighbours — not least because of how relentlessly successive governments have expanded Jewish settlements in the West Bank since occupying it in 1967."}],[{"start":429.9,"text":"“Of course [the push to establish settlements in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria] is an extreme and minority position,” said one Arab diplomat. “But what Israel is doing now in the West Bank — 20 years ago we would have thought that was an extreme and minority [position]. This shows the trajectory of this society.”"}],[{"start":449.09999999999997,"text":"Cartography by Steven Bernard"}],[{"start":461.5,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1779181601_1100.mp3"}