Ceasefires and construction: How Israel is cementing its presence in Lebanon and Syria
Submitted by Daniel Hilton on Wed, 06/10/2026 - 12:56
Satellite imagery shows Israel has developed a string of bases from the Mediterranean to the Yarmouk River in newly occupied territory. Sources say it looks like they're here to stay
Israeli soldiers operate at Beaufort Ridge in southern Lebanon, in this handout image released on 31 May 2026 (Israeli military/handout via Reuters) On With its sweeping panoramas of south Lebanon and flags rising over 1,000-year-old battlements, the footage Israel released last week of its troops seizing Beaufort Castle was intended to provoke awe and anger.
The Crusader castle is certainly an impressive landmark with a poignant history.
But while the eyes of invading Israeli soldiers will have undoubtedly been drawn to the vast basalt blocks of its ancient walls, some vestiges along the western ramparts may have also caught their attention: concrete bunkers.
Between 1982 and 2000, Israel maintained a permanent base at Beaufort Castle, one repeatedly shelled by Hezbollah during a guerrilla campaign that eventually forced the occupiers out.
A quarter of a century later, Israel has again established fortified military bases on vantage points in newly occupied land.
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This time, they stretch through southern Lebanon and Syria, from the Mediterranean coast to the Yarmouk basin via the summit of Mount Hermon.
Developed since late 2024, analysis of satellite imagery reveals a concerted effort to build fortifications and infrastructure that suggests an intention to remain in situ.
Syrian and Lebanese military officers and sources close to Hezbollah tell Middle East Eye they are under no illusions: despite promises of withdrawal, Israel intends for these bases to remain permanent.
“If you are planning to withdraw, you do not carry out this much work,” a Lebanese military source tells MEE.
Lebanon: Invasion, truce and development
Israel invaded Lebanon in October 2024, escalating year-long, cross-border clashes with Hezbollah that the Lebanese movement launched in response to the genocide in Gaza.
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By the time Israel agreed to fully withdraw in a 27 November 2024 ceasefire agreement, Lebanon was traumatised.
Hezbollah’s leadership had been largely wiped out, 4,000 people had been killed by Israel and more than a million had been displaced from the south and areas of Beirut.
Under the terms of that agreement, the Israelis had 60 days to pull out, with Hezbollah promising to retreat north of the Litani River in return. Yet, despite an extension, the deadline came and went, with Israel refusing to leave five positions it established in the first days of the invasion.
These five bases were all built on hilltop positions, giving a clear line of sight over large stretches of south Lebanon.
Running along most of Lebanon’s 79km border with Israel, they loom over several towns and villages, all of which have now been depopulated and some of which have been levelled.
Unifil, the UN peacekeeping force set to wind down its operations in 2027, has operated in the area for two decades, and Israel appears to be making use of - and improvements to - tracks used by its patrols.
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The post at Labbouneh, Israel’s most western position, is just 150 metres from a Unifil base and 2km from the force’s main headquarters on the coast.
Similarly, at Tal Dowary near Houla, the Israeli base has been established 1.5km from Unifil peacekeepers.
Satellite imagery shows work beginning at the sites in October 2024. At first, nearby buildings are destroyed. Israel has used air strikes, detonations and bulldozers to raze areas close to the border.
The images also show roads being widened, land degradation and earth fortifications emerging over the following months. By the turn of the year, accommodation units and vehicles have started appearing at the bases.
Work really gets going once the ceasefire begins and Israel has agreed to withdraw.
From January to September 2025, Israel rapidly develops the sites. Fortifications are widened, heightened and expanded, including alongside some roads.
The perimeters of some bases grow, with roads broadened and watchtowers erected.
By November, images show a large increase in accommodation units and vehicles in all the sites.
“For 15 months, we watched the Israelis bring in reinforcements, conduct drilling works, and open roads around these sites - steps that suggest an intention to remain permanently,” the Lebanese military source says.
Images from October 2023 and December 2025 reveal a new Israeli base, to the right of the image, adjacent to the existing UN base at Labbouneh (MEE)
The bases are, says a source close to Hezbollah, operational centres “designed defensively, making it impossible to approach them, while also allowing offensive operations to be launched from them”.
According to the source, who is intimately familiar with developments in the south, Israel intended for the bases to provide it with a secure zone five kilometres deep.
Yet hostilities broke out again in early March, when Israel killed Iran’s Ali Khamenei, an important spiritual figurehead for many Lebanese Shia, and Hezbollah attacked Israel once again, suspecting an imminent invasion.
Weeks later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly approved the establishment of several new outposts in Lebanese territory.
Israeli soldiers have told Haaretz that these newer positions do not appear temporary. “These are permanent outposts that will be manned for a long time,” a soldier told the newspaper. “Nobody really knows where this is going.”
The usefulness of Israel’s bases in Lebanon is debatable. Hezbollah, despite being struck almost daily during the supposed ceasefire, has reorganised in the south under Israel’s nose.
And since hostilities began again, Hezbollah attacks and operations have been seen in several border areas, with Israeli troops unable to assert control in villages close to their bases, such as Khiam.
Similarly, the Israeli hold on positions earmarked to become new outposts has been shaky: Hezbollah even managed to film itself tearing down an Israeli flag from one such post near the western town of al-Bayyada.
Images from October 2023 and November 2025 reveal how buildings have been destroyed to make way for a new Israeli base south of a UN post at Tal Dowary (MEE)
Last Thursday, a new US-backed ceasefire proposal was put forward. There was no mention of any Israeli withdrawal from the areas it occupies - now a fifth of the whole country.
Israel said it agreed to the plan but continued to attack Lebanon and occupy more territory. Hezbollah's secretary-general, Naim Qassem, said his party rejects any ceasefire agreement that does not include a full Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory.
The source close to the party warns of Israeli attempts to separate the south from the rest of Lebanon entirely.
As the satellite imagery shows, Israel used the last ceasefire to cement a more permanent foothold in the country.
“According to current assessments, Israel is now trying to entrench itself in every position it has reached and turn those positions into fixed centres,” the source tells MEE.
“Yet so far, beyond the positions it already established, fortified and turned into centres during the previous war, everything newly created remains unfortified and vulnerable at any moment to attacks by the resistance.”
Syria: Revolution and occupation
The end of Israel’s 2024 invasion of Lebanon dovetailed with dramatic events in Syria that opened the door for a new occupation to the east.
On 27 November, the day the Lebanese ceasefire began, Syrian rebels charged out of their Idlib province stronghold in an assault that would reach Damascus and topple Bashar al-Assad within a fortnight.
As the rebels, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, celebrated the end to a decade of civil war, Israel pummelled military sites across Syria and moved troops into a neutral UN-monitored buffer zone and beyond.
Among the first locations seized was the summit of Mount Hermon, which at 2,814 metres is the Levant’s second-highest peak.
'Israel is now trying to entrench itself in every position it has reached and turn those positions into fixed centres'
- Source close to Hezbollah
Netanyahu triumphantly visited troops there that December, insisting Israel would not retreat for at least a year.
Deep into 2026, Israel remains at the summit. Meanwhile, a series of bases has been established from Mount Hermon’s peak to the Yarmouk River on the Syrian-Jordanian border - a line of control 70km long.
MEE has identified at least 10 Israeli bases and observation posts set up in newly occupied areas of Syria since the fall of Assad.
Eight are within the neutral buffer zone, which was created along the boundary of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights after the 1973 Middle East war and is monitored by another UN peacekeeping force, Undof.
Satellite imagery also shows Israel has constructed long lines of earth fortifications along that boundary, known as the Purple Line, including elevated mounds allowing vehicles to ascend for surveillance.
Israeli bases in Syria (from top left): Hader, Jubata al-Khashab, Khan Arnabeh, Lake Aziz, Al-Hamidiyah and Quneitra (MEE)
According to Carmit Valensi, head of the Syrian programme at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Israel’s leading security-focused think tank, the push into Syria was prompted by distrust of Sharaa, who is now president, and his forces.
Valensi says the 7 October Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel “shattered” the assumption that deterrence - “the main pillar of Israeli strategy” - would keep its enemies at bay.
“From that point on, Israel decided to adopt what we might call the buffer zone strategy, which obviously we can see clearly in Syria and Lebanon and Gaza,” she tells MEE.
Israeli bases can now be found in three Syrian provinces: Quneitra, Daraa and the Damascus Countryside.
Like in Lebanon, earth berms speckled with watchtowers surround fortified accommodations and vehicle stations.
The bases are distributed across strategic hilltops, major road junctions, and dominant terrain overlooking the corridors connecting the Golan Heights to Damascus. At Tulul al-Humr, Israeli troops are situated just 40km from the Syrian capital.
“In western Daraa, positions were selected specifically because they provide commanding oversight over valley entrances and surrounding villages” says a source from the new Syrian government’s military.
Some Israeli bases here are also close to UN peacekeepers: the position north of the village of Hader in Mount Hermon’s foothills is just 500m from a Undof base.
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Strikingly, as the Israeli base is developed over a series of months, the Undof position, too, can be seen expanding and developing.
Israel’s bases in Syria depart from its five in Lebanon in important aspects. Most of them have been established in areas previously occupied by Assad’s Syrian Arab Army.
“Initially, Israel’s ground operations in southwestern Syria focused on the destruction of former Syrian Arab Army positions, followed by the construction of new military infrastructure,” the Syrian military source says.
“This process included mine-laying operations, the demolition of civilian homes, forced displacement, and the destruction of agricultural land and forested areas - methods that strongly resemble practices observed in both Gaza and the West Bank.”
At the hilltop near Hader, for instance, satellite imagery shows Israel enlarging an old Syrian position, converting it into a larger site that includes new buildings and facilities.
In the very south, Israel has taken over al-Jazira military barracks on a hilltop that commands views down both the Yarmouk and Ruqqad rivers.
And above and below Quneitra city, the provincial capital turned into a ghost town by Israel decades earlier, are two more Israeli bases that have been constructed on the ruins of old Syrian compounds.
While Israel relies on dirt tracks and roads in south Lebanon that pre-existed the conflict, in Syria, it has cut new roads, linking the bases and even stretching into the Golan Heights and its largest town, Majdal Shams.
Many of the new and old roads and tracks have been paved, facilitating rapid troop movement.
A staging post appears to have been established in the forested area of Jubata al-Khashab, close to the Purple Line, with roads connecting it to more advanced fortified outposts nearby.
It is the largest Israeli base in newly occupied Syria, with satellite imagery showing it hosting military vehicles and storage facilities.
“In terms of the characteristics of these positions and bases, we can assume that there is a long-term intention,” says Valensi.
Calm breeds chaos
One recurring pattern in both Lebanon and Syria is Israel’s propensity to rapidly develop military infrastructure during moments of calm.
While there is no formal ceasefire or indeed conflict between Israel and Syria, Damascus has sought US help to find an agreement that would end Israeli attacks and occupation of its territory.
“Ceasefires have increasingly functioned as diplomatic delays that provide Israel with opportunities to entrench itself militarily, exploit operational gaps, and consolidate territorial control. In practice, there is little evidence of a genuine diplomatic process,” a second Syrian military source said.
The source noted that Israel quickly spread its footprint in Syria after the US in January established a “joint fusion mechanism” between the three countries to facilitate coordination and help de-escalation.
'In terms of the characteristics of these positions and bases, we can assume that there is a long-term intention'
- Carmit Valensi, INSS
Since then, Israeli checkpoints have sprung up on several roads in western Daraa between Tal Ahmar al-Gharbi and al-Jazira military barracks.
“Data [on Israeli activity] collected between February and May indicates that Israel is not genuinely pursuing negotiations or diplomacy. Rather, it is using diplomatic processes as windows of opportunity for long-term entrenchment,” the second source says.
Valensi believes the occupation of large areas of Syria is unsustainable, with the Israeli military exhausted by two-and-a-half years of constant regional war.
She also warns of the effects that a permanent, active and aggressive Israeli presence in Syria is having. “In my opinion, it causes much more damage than advantages,” she says.
According to Syrian military sources, Israel has conducted an average of 17.5 raids on villages a month in the past year, alongside arrests, occasional shelling of farmland and forced evictions.
“We clearly see the change and the shift in the Syrian discourse towards Israel from rather more moderate, restrained stances into much more radical ones,” Valensi says.
Additional reporting by Nadav Rapoport in Tel Aviv, Israel
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