Indonesian peacekeeper dies of wounds suffered in Lebanon last month, UNIFIL says

Copyright AP Photo

By Gavin Blackburn

Published on 24/04/2026 - EURONEWS

His death brings the number of peacekeepers killed since the start of the most recent war between Israel and Hezbollah on 2 March to six.

The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, said on Friday that an Indonesian blue helmet died in hospital of wounds suffered in an attack on his base on 29 March.

"UNIFIL deplores the passing today of Corporal Rico Pramudia, who was critically injured following a projectile explosion in his base in Adchit Al Qusayr on the night of 29 March," the force said in a statement.

His death brings the number of peacekeepers killed since the start of the most recent war between Israel and Hezbollah on 2 March to six.

UNIFIL said at the time of the 29 March attack that one Indonesian soldier was killed and another wounded

A preliminary investigation by the UN found that the soldier was killed by an Israeli tank shell.

The following day, two more Indonesian blue helmets were killed by an improvised explosive device.

The same UN investigation found that Hezbollah was likely responsible.

Indonesia has already urged the UN to launch a thorough investigation into both incidents.

Two French soldiers serving in UNIFIL were killed in an ambush on 18 April, which French authorities and the UN have blamed on Hezbollah. The group denies any involvement.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon has carried out peacekeeping duties between Israel and Lebanon since 1978 but has found itself caught in the crossfire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah. UNIFIL comprises nearly 8,200 troops from 47 countries.

A ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah has been in effect since 17 April, which the US said on Thursday night had been extended by three weeks.

Macron urges Israel to withdraw from Lebanon as Salam calls for €500m in aid

French President Emmanuel Macron held talks with Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in Paris late on Tuesday, with both leaders using the meeting to push for stability in southern Lebanon and to rally support for a country reeling from weeks of war.


Issued on: 22/04/2026 - RFI

France's President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on 21 April 2026. AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN

Speaking after their meeting, Salam said Lebanon would need €500 million over the next six months to address the humanitarian fallout from the conflict, as a fragile 10-day ceasefire with Israel continues to hold.

The Lebanese authorities have put the death toll from six weeks of fighting at 2,450, with at least 7,650 wounded, since early March.

The meeting at the Élysée Palace focused on maintaining the ceasefire and reaffirming France’s backing for Lebanon’s territorial integrity, while also looking ahead to renewed negotiations between Beirut and Tel Aviv.

Macron struck a firm but balanced tone, urging Israel to “renounce its territorial ambitions” in Lebanon while insisting that Hezbollah must stop firing into Israeli territory and be disarmed “by the Lebanese themselves”.

He also called for a broader agreement that would guarantee “the security of both countries” and lay the groundwork for a possible normalisation of relations.

For his part, Salam said Lebanon was seeking the “complete withdrawal” of Israeli forces from its territory, alongside the return of prisoners and displaced civilians, as part of the talks set to resume in Washington later this week.

Israel’s ‘buffer zone’

Even as Macron hardened his public language, French officials have continued to strike a more measured tone. The Élysée has described the Israeli military’s “buffer zone” in southern Lebanon as “temporary”, stopping short of calling for its immediate removal.

Israeli forces have pushed deep into the region, drawing what officials describe as a defensive “yellow line” aimed at shielding northern Israeli communities from cross-border fire.

French officials have suggested that, for now, stabilisation takes precedence over territorial adjustments. The buffer zone, they argue, is intended as a short-term security measure rather than a permanent redrawing of borders.

“The issue today is not to shift these lines,” an Élysée official said, stressing instead the need to prevent a resumption of hostilities.

The expectation in Paris is that the question of territory will be resolved through negotiations – with Lebanon’s “territorial integrity” ultimately restored as part of a lasting peace agreement.

France has also pushed back against suggestions it should remain on the sidelines. Despite reported Israeli reluctance to involve Paris directly, Macron’s advisers insist France is uniquely placed to support Lebanon in implementing the disarmament of Hezbollah and reinforcing state authority in the south.

Map of the Israeli occupation zone in Lebanon © reuters

UNIFIL attack underscores tensions

Tuesday’s meeting came in the shadow of a deadly ambush on UN peacekeepers last week, where a French soldier serving with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was killed over the weekend, with three others wounded.

Macron blamed Hezbollah for the attack but stressed that France itself had not been specifically singled out. “They didn’t target them because they were French,” he said earlier this week. “They targeted them because they were on a mission to stand alongside the civilian population.”

The incident has sharpened concerns about the risks facing peacekeepers even as the ceasefire holds. France has said it is ready to maintain its commitment on the ground in Lebanon even after the UNIFIL mission is due to end at the close of the year.

The UN Security Council has condemned the attack in the strongest terms and reaffirmed its full support for the mission. Hezbollah, which opposes the Lebanon–Israel talks, has denied involvement.

UNIFIL Chief of Staff Major General Paul Sanzey saluting the coffin of late French UNIFIL peacekeeper Sergeant-Chef Florian Montorio during a tribute ceremony on the tarmac of Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport prior to the repatriation of his remains to France, 19 April 2026 AFP - HANDOUT

Beruit open to peace

Alongside France’s diplomatic push, Lebanon’s leadership has signalled a willingness to pursue a negotiated end to the conflict, despite strong domestic opposition.

President Joseph Aoun has said the talks with Israel aim to halt hostilities, end the occupation of southern regions, and enable the Lebanese army to deploy fully along the internationally recognised border.

“I have chosen negotiations,” Aoun said, expressing hope that diplomacy could “save Lebanon” from further devastation.

His stance has exposed deep internal divisions, with Hezbollah sharply criticising the talks, warning that direct negotiations risk undermining national consensus, although it has indicated support for maintaining the ceasefire.

(with newswires)

Shadow of failed 1983 agreement haunts new Israeli-Lebanon talks

EXPLAINER

As Lebanon prepares to resume direct discussions with Israel, the ghost of the May 17 Agreement of 1983 – a deal that was signed but never implemented – is haunting the new round of negotiations. President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam are facing a smear campaign from Hezbollah, which has already rejected any compromise and issued thinly veiled threats against the country's leadership.

Issued on: 23/04/2026 -
FRANCE24
By: Marc DAOU  

This file photo shows Chief Lebanese negotiator, Antoine Fattal, right, chief Israeli negotiator, David Kimche, left, and US Special Envoy Morris Draper, smiling as they shake hands in Khalde, Lebanon, on May 17, 1983. © Bill Foley, AP

Since the announcement of a new round of direct talks between Lebanon and Israel scheduled for Thursday, following a first meeting in Washington in early April, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have been the targets of a smear campaign orchestrated by Hezbollah supporters.

The head of state, who is banking on the talks to secure an Israeli army withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a final demarcation of the shared border, was even the target of an implicit death threat issued by officials from the Shia party.

The threat was taken seriously in Beirut given the pro-Iranian movement’s track record, with several of its members convicted by the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) over the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafic Hariri.

Senior Hezbollah official Nawaf Moussaoui warned in an interview with the party's Al-Manar television channel on Saturday that if the Lebanese president "wants to take decisions unilaterally, he is no more important than Anwar al-Sadat" – a reference to the Egyptian president who was assassinated in 1981, three years after signing a peace deal with Israel at Camp David.

Moussaoui added that any negotiation or agreement between Israel and Lebanon would be "rejected, unrecognised and thrown in the bin, like the May 17, 1983 agreement".

A deal that never took effect

That security agreement – never implemented – was officially signed by Israel and Lebanon under US auspices at Khaldeh, near Beirut, during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). Lebanon, then led by President Amine Gemayel (1982-1988), was at the time simultaneously occupied by both the Israeli and Syrian armies.

Ambassador Antoine Fattal headed the Lebanese delegation, while the Israeli team was led by diplomat David Kimche, with both sides facing US President Ronald Reagan's envoy Morris Draper, Under-Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.

The deal resulted from 35 Israeli-Lebanese meetings in late December 1982 and held alternately in Lebanon and Israel. Comprising a dozen articles, it was meant to be a first step towards lasting peace between the two countries.

Its preamble proclaimed "the termination of the state of war" between the two neighbours, who under article 2 committed to "settle their disputes by peaceful means".

Chief Israeli negotiator David Kimche, right, gestures as he speaks with Antoine Fattal, Lebanon's chief negotiator in Khalde, Lebanon, on March 1, 1983. © Eddie Tamerian, AP


The text provided for the creation of a security zone in southern Lebanon, a timetable for the withdrawal of Israeli forces and a commitment by each side not to allow its territory to be used as a base for "hostile or terrorist activity" against the other.

It even suggested future negotiations on "agreements on the movement of goods, products and persons and their implementation on a non-discriminatory basis".

Although ratified by the Lebanese parliament, the agreement was never promulgated by President Gemayel. In March 1984, it was abrogated by the council of ministers under pressure from Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and his Lebanese allies at the time – Druze warlord Walid Joumblatt and Nabih Berri, head of the Shia Amal militia and Lebanon's parliament speaker since 1992 – all of whom were hostile to any agreement with Israel.

Assad, with no small irony, told Gemayel that the abrogation was "a victory for the peoples of Syria and Lebanon and of the entire Arab nation" and that his country would "remain at Lebanon's side in its struggle for independence and sovereignty" – even as his army remained an occupying force in the country.

In a recent interview with the daily newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour, the former Lebanese president said Israel had not genuinely wanted to implement the May 17 agreement either, accusing it of having added "at the last minute, clauses to the previously negotiated text", including one requiring a simultaneous Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon – effectively giving Damascus veto power.

"It was a way of giving Damascus a veto," he said. "Especially since we had no control over the decision on the withdrawal of the Syrian army."

An Iranian veto?

Asked about this Lebanese-Israeli precedent in relation to the current situation, Sami Nader, director of the Institute of Political Science at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, pointed to a regional context entirely different from that of 1983.

“At the time, only Anwar al-Sadat’s Egypt had signed a peace agreement with Israel,” he explained, noting that the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan later joined the Abraham Accords under US President Donald Trump, while Jordan had signed a peace treaty in 1994. “Today, even Syria, which was once the main obstacle to the May 17 agreement, is ready to sign with the Israelis.”

Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Charaa said on Friday at a diplomatic forum in Turkey that he was open to direct negotiations with Israel over the occupied Golan Heights if a security deal guaranteed Israeli withdrawal from recently occupied Syrian territories.

"In 1983, Hezbollah, which had just been founded, did not yet have a say in Lebanon. Today it is the main obstacle to such negotiations, as is its Iranian patron, which opposes regional normalisation efforts with Israel," Nader said.

Direct talks between Lebanon and Israel would deprive Tehran of leverage, he added, because Iran wants Lebanon – through Hezbollah – to remain a strategic card.
A 'yellow line' that 'instils doubt'

Nader also noted a "fundamental difference" between the Israeli invasion of 1982 and the current one, "due to the famous yellow line drawn by the Netanyahu government, isolating part of the territory, devastated and emptied of its population".

Israeli authorities say they have drawn a "yellow line" deep inside southern Lebanon, claiming it is intended to protect northern Israeli communities from Hezbollah fire.

In Lebanon, the buffer zone – stretching hundreds of square kilometres from the Mediterranean coast to the Lebanese-Syrian border – is widely seen as a new unilateral border drawn by Israel.

In Gaza, a similar “yellow line” established after the October ceasefire cuts the territory from north to south between a Hamas-controlled zone and another effectively controlled by the Israeli army.

This yellow line "instils doubt about Israeli intentions", Nader insisted. "Because it is reminiscent of a scenario already seen in the Syrian Golan – a scenario of annexation – and no observer can rule out that possibility with the far-right government currently leading Israel."

"Even more than President Gemayel in 1983, President Aoun seems to believe that the only way for Lebanon to rule out such a scenario is to negotiate, that is, to seek peace, and therefore in a sense the disarmament of Hezbollah, in exchange for the conquered territory," he concluded.

"Because the other option, the military one advocated by the Shia party, allows the Israelis to justify their occupation of southern Lebanon."

This article was translated from the original in French by Anaëlle Jonah.

Lebanon, Iran, and the Forgotten Plight of the Shia “Infidel”

Nicky Reid

 April 17, 2026

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Image by Chloe Christine.

As a badly battered Middle East hangs off the edge of a cliff by a string with a temporary ceasefire between the United States and Iran, peace or anything remotely resembling it looks even less likely for Southern Lebanon than it does for the rest of that treacherous map drawn by dead British arseholes. Even if Israel were the kind of creature that could be trusted to respect a ceasefire with anyone, much of the damage is already done.

Long before the latest peacetime artillery pogrom, the IDF had already spent the better part of a month attempting to empty out every square inch of the region south of the Litani River with the same kind of scorched earth campaign they used to cleanse Gaza before obliterating every bridge crossing said Litani River. 600,000 people have been herded north to join another 600,000 Lebanese citizens in being internally displaced by Zionist terrorism.

Israel has made their intentions for this slice of the Levant sickeningly clear. They have already publicly abandoned their mythic crusade to disarm Hezbollah in favor of focusing exclusively on the blatantly illegal goal of simply annexing another chunk of the Holy Land and declaring it a “buffer zone.” They aren’t the least bit shy about just what they are attempting to “buffer” either.

Israel has released official statements reassuring the region’s Christian and Druze populations that they will be allowed to return home to Israeli-occupied rubble, but have also harshly warned these populations against so much as even sheltering any member of that region’s Shiite majority, who have very pointedly not been welcomed to return.

There is a word for this, and it starts with a ‘G,’ but even the most progressive First World observers don’t seem to want to use it. This seems particularly strange considering how many westerners have finally broken the taboo of accusing Israel of committing genocide in Palestine, but the word feels pretty damn appropriate here too.

Israel has openly declared war on Lebanon’s population of Shia Muslims, successfully removing many of them from the region of that nation that has long been their stronghold and instructing them in no uncertain terms never to come back, but still most westerners continue to avoid using the G-word here and I do believe that the reason why tells us a great deal about the violent current of First World depravity informing the larger regional war that has grown to engulf the entirety of the Middle East.

In a word, it all comes down to Shiaphobia.

Shia Muslims have long found themselves the victims of rampant and frequently brutal discrimination across the Muslim world, going all the way back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad. A minority among an already besieged faithful, Shiites provoked the wrath of the Umayyads with their critique of what they saw as the unjust power of the Caliphs and have never been forgiven for this rebellious trespass against theological conformity.

All other theocratic differences aside, it appears to be this population’s willingness to confront the corruption of the majority that has defined their plight above all else, a plight which has not only seen eleven of the twelve Shia Imams murdered at the hands of a variety of despotic autocrats, but has also led to the construction and proliferation of entire extremist Sunni sects like the Wahabi and the Salafi who are largely defined by their advocacy for genocide against all infidels, with the Shia serving the role of the original transgressors.

We have seen this play out in one horror show after another across the Muslim world, whether it be the systematic displacement of over 50% of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Shia Hazara community or the glorified Sunni apartheid state of Bahrain, which has long shackled that oil-rich nation’s slim Shia majority with the status of second-class citizens.

More often than not, it has been Western imperialists fueling the bigotry, too, targeting Shia communities for their inability to capitulate and conform to our pseudo-Islamic Wahhabi quislings and generally using them as convenient scapegoats to keep the Sunni majority distracted while we rob them blind, too.

In many ways, for better or worse, Iran’s consistently defiant Islamic Republic is the natural result of the systemic plight of the Shia. After centuries of being raped and pillaged by one corrupt caliphate after another, the Twelvers formed a caliphate of their own, defined not only by their spiritual resistance to the West and its proxies but their willingness to put their money where their mouth is and support Shia and occasionally even Sunni resistance to colonial subjugation anywhere and everywhere it surfaces.

Sadly, this has also led Tehran to play the part of the foreign interloper, intervening even where they aren’t wanted by a Shia community far too vast and diverse to ever be properly represented by any kind of centralized authority. On more than one occasion, we have seen the Mullahs falling victim to that old Nietzschean trope and resembling the very same kind of corrupt caliphs they once defined themselves by disobeying.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has undoubtably become a corrupt and venal hierarchy of bloodthirsty fundamentalist imposters who have become totally disconnected from Islam’s roots as a force for social justice that had originally put them to the left of their Abrahamic cousins, but they must not be confused with the merciless beasts that even liberal westerners have convinced themselves that they are and they certainly must not be tarred by the downright absurd farce that they are somehow “the greatest state sponsors of terrorism on the planet.”

This simple act of historical sanity seems to be an obnoxiously challenging feat for the West to even attempt to grasp but after having our asses handed to us on a tarnished brass platter by the Islamic Republic, even after we assassinated the first two or three layers of their government, I feel like any form of peace is compulsory upon grasping it.

I guess, at the end of the day, you probably have to ask yourself a few hard questions before you can swallow the truth.

First, who is Hezbollah? Hezbollah is a militia formed by Lebanese Shia clerics during Israel’s brutal invasion of their already war-torn nation in the 1980s. They were trained by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard but formed well before this to defend a marginalized community subjected to near-routine massacres and pogroms during the Lebanese Civil War.

Now, who are the Houthis? The Houthi rebels, otherwise known as Ansar Allah, were actually a relatively moderate theological movement advocating for the revival of the Zaydi school of Shia Islam endemic to the mountains of Northern Yemen until their criticism of an American-backed dictator got their founder murdered and the Zaydi were forced to rely on the rifle to affect change. The Revolutionary Guard doesn’t actually appear at all during their rise until well after the Houthis established themselves as a force to be reckoned with.

But just who exactly are the Revolutionary Guard anyway, aside from a branch of the Iranian military connected to the so-called terrorists above? Well, they are the force responsible for organizing the Shia militias that crippled Al-Qaeda in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of post-Saddam Iraq. They are also the force that united a vast and diverse coalition known as the Axis of Resistance, more responsible than any conventional army for breaking the back of the genocidally Shiaphobic Islamic State.

Contrary to Western mythology, Iran’s Islamic Republic has found itself serving the role of the greatest state sponsor of grassroots antiterrorism on the planet. Now, with that being said, there is a very fine line between terrorism and antiterrorism, what with Nietzschean monsters being what they are, but let us at least get the score right and let us do so with a few more uncomfortable questions too.

First, who exactly is Al-Qaeda? Al-Qaeda is a loose network of Salafi-Wahhabist killers who spawned from the armies Jimmy Carter organized to kill communists in Afghanistan. And who are ISIS but the bastard sons of Al-Qaeda, not-so secretly funded by forces outside of the Levant for the purpose of destabilizing the pro-Russian Shia dictatorship of the Assad Dynasty in Syria. Their biggest donors are old Jimmy’s friends in the Persian Gulf

And just who are these friends in the Gulf? A clique of Salafi-Wahhabist billionaires defined by a series of Faustian bargains made with the British Empire and Big Oil after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. They are also the source of nearly every dollar that has ever lined the pockets not just of Al-Qaeda and ISIS, but Al-Shebab, Al-Nusra, Boko Haram, and nearly every other organization advocating for distinctly global, aka imperial jihad.

Now, for the million-dollar question. Who is the United States? The US is the empire that arms, funds, and defends those nefarious Gulf States, along with the blatantly genocidal state of Israel, with trillions of dollars in tax-pilfered funds and millions of pounds of military hardware, much of which mysteriously and repeatedly finds its way into the ungrateful hands of Salafi-Wahhabist killers across the globe.

Ladies and gentlemen, the United States of America is the greatest state sponsor of terrorism on the planet, and Iran is our number one target in the Middle East because they are the fucking monsters defined by destroying our fucking monsters.

The Russians have an old saying that the communists were wrong about everything but capitalism. I guess you could probably sum up this latest rant of mine by saying that the Mullahs were wrong about everything but the Great Satan.

They oughta know, Satan always seems to go after the Shiites and the communists first, and there ain’t many communists left.

Nicky Reid is an agoraphobic anarcho-genderqueer gonzo blogger from Central Pennsylvania and assistant editor for Attack the System. You can find her online at Exile in Happy Valley.

Inside Israel's expansionist ambitions

Djamilia Prange de Oliveira

DW

10/04/2026 

Israel has never officially defined its borders, but Israeli settlers and ministers are flirting with the biblical idea of extending them far beyond the current state. What's behind the concept of "Greater Israel"?

Daniela Weiss holds a laminated map of the Middle East with the title "The Promised Land" into the camera and says: "This is the promise of God to the patriarchs of the Jewish nation."

The map shows a Jewish state that encompasses parts of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia – extending way beyond the 1949 armistice line, the so-called Green Line that defines Israel's territory according to international law.

"It's 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) – almost as big as the Sahara desert," Weiss adds.

Weiss – sometimes nicknamed "the godmother of the Israeli settler movement" – is referring to the idea of "Greater Israel", or in Hebrew "Eretz Israel HaShlema" – "Complete Israel." It's an expansionist concept popular among the Israeli far right that originates in the Bible.

Settler leader Daniela Weiss at a right-wing rally near the Gaza Strip in July 2025Image: Menahem Kahana/AFP

"For the proponents of the settlement policy like Bezalel Smotrich, the current finance minister, or Itamar Ben Gvir, the national security minister, it's not about making Israel greater than it actually should be," Gil Shohat, a historian and director of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Tel Aviv, tells DW.

"It's about completing the job. This means that the claim to the whole of historical Palestine or 'Eretz Israel', as they frame it, is a divine promise," he adds.

Some Israelis interpret "Complete" or "Greater Israel" to include the territory Israel seized in 1967: The Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) — the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza — as well as the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights in Syria and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt that Israel returned decades ago. Others aim for the entire area promised in the Bible, stretching from the Egyptian Nile River to the Euphrates River, which flows through Turkey, Syria and Iraq.

Weiss' words are from a 2014 interview with Australian channel ABC News, but her ideas have only gained traction in Israeli politics since, as Israel continues its multi-front war across the Middle East.

'Greater Israel' in current politics

In March 2023, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich caused diplomatic turmoil when he spoke at a Paris memorial behind a podium featuring a "Greater Israel" map that included not only the territories Israel currently occupies but also Jordan.

A year later, he told the German-French channel ARTE that "the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus," referring to the Syrian capital.

Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich holds a map of the settlement project known as E1 in the occupied West Bank in August 2025Image: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP Photo/picture alliance

In September 2024, when speaking about his plans for "the day after" the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a map that fully annexed the West Bank.

In August 2025, he told the Israeli channel i24NEWS that he was "very much" connected to the vision of "Greater Israel," prompting Egypt and Jordan to demand clarifications from Israel.

And just a few months ago, in February 2026, the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, told American talkshow host Tucker Carlson that it would be "fine" if Israel took over the entire Middle East.

The origins of 'Greater Israel'

In the biblical story (Genesis 15:18-21), God promises Abraham and his descendants a territory from the Nile to the Euphrates River. This vision was later picked up by some Jewish religious and nationalist thinkers and became a foundational element of Zionist ideology.

Zionist thinkers including Theodor Herzl and Ze'ev Jabotinsky referenced these biblical boundaries in their writings. Herzl called the idea of the biblical homeland "excellent" in his diaries, and Jabotinsky echoed this vision in his song "The East Bank of the Jordan". Each verse ends with the line: "The Jordan has two banks – this one is ours, and so is the other."

The song later became the theme of Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionist youth movement, "Betar." Benjamin Netanyahu's father, Benzion Netanyahu, was active in Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionist movement and served briefly as a close aide to Jabotinsky before his death.

Historian Gil Shohat says that for figures of Israel's far right, "Greater Israel" is a divine promise

Image: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung

Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, also flirted with the idea of "Greater Israel" but ended up taking a more pragmatic approach. Before thinking about expansion, he tactically prioritized the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state. But he deliberately left Israel's borders undefined in the 1948 Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, creating strategic ambiguity for future expansion.

In a 1937 speech, he said: "The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan: one does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today, but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them."

Expansion is already reality

Israel expanded its borders beyond what was proposed in the UN Partition Plan in 1947. The plan allocated about 56% of former British Mandatory Palestine to a future Jewish state, but after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Israel controlled about 77%.

Since occupying East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 1967, Israel effectively controls nearly all of former Mandatory Palestine, in addition to the Golan Heights.

The international community does not recognize these areas as part of sovereign Israeli territory. But most Israelis do, says Shohat: "It's been almost 60 years since Israel occupied these areas. Even in textbooks of more liberal schools in Tel Aviv, the map of Israel includes the West Bank and Gaza."

Today, more than 700,000 Jewish Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank and in East Jerusalem, according to the United Nations. Estimates for the Golan Heights range between 23,000 and 31,000 settlers, along with some 20,000 Druze who remained there when Israel seized the area.

The UN views all Israeli settlements beyond the Green Line as a violation of international law, and in an advisory opinion of 2024, the International Court of Justice found the occupation to be illegal.

After the territorial expansion following the 1967 war, the idea of "Greater Israel" gained momentum. Today, it remains influential among some far-right Israeli religious and nationalist groups, but is not a mainstream position in Israeli society, says Shohat.

"The occupation of historical Palestine — so basically Israel, the West Bank and Gaza — is normalized. I do not yet see the trend of normalizing permanent settlements in southern Lebanon, or even in parts of Syria. But this does not mean that the situation in these regions cannot develop into permanent settlement if there is no meaningful international and internal opposition to it."

But even though it is not a mainstream position in Israeli society, the idea of territorial expansion has long permeated key parts of the Israeli government. In March 2026, Finance Minister Smotrich called for the annexation of southern Lebanon.

In a 2024 conference hosted by Nahala, Weiss' settler organization, Finance Minister Smotrich, Security Minister Ben Gvir and settler leader Weiss lobbied for the "voluntary emigration" of Palestinians from Gaza.

Itamar Ben Gvir celebrates Israel's new death penalty law for Palestinians on March 30, 2026 in the Knesset

Image: Oren Ben Hakoon/REUTERS

On stage, Ben Gvir said: "If we don't want another October 7, we need to go back home and control [Gaza]. We need to find a legal way to voluntarily emigrate [Palestinians] and impose death sentences on terrorists."

Two years later, Ben Gvir got a step closer to what he wanted. On March 30, the Knesset, Israel's parliament, approved a law imposing the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of fatal attacks.

Edited by: Kyra Levine and Sarah Hofmann

Djamilia Prange de Oliveira Reporter with a special focus on women's rights, culture, social policy and Brazil.

ANALYSIS

'An eye for an eye': Israel’s death penalty law is retaliatory and electorally motivated

The Israeli parliament's adoption of a law establishing "the death penalty for terrorists" – which in practice will only apply to Palestinians – has provoked an international outcry. The reasons for it passing are not just retaliatory, but politically motivated.

2/04/2026 - FRANCE24
By: Marc DAOU

Israel's Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, center, at the Knesset in Jerusalem Monday, March 30, 2026. © Itay Cohen, AP

"This is historic! With God's help, soon we will execute them one by one!"

These were the words spoken by Israel’s far-right Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir on Monday, March 31, just after a 62–48 vote in the Israeli Knesset that passed a law to apply the death penalty to convicted ‘terrorists’.

Ben-Gvir celebrated the Death Penalty for Terrorists Bill by popping open bottles of champagne and embracing fellow supporters at the Knesset. In the run-up to the vote, he had worn a lapel pin in the shape of a noose, symbolising his support for the legislation.

Limor Son Har Melech, a member of Itamar Ben-Gvir's nationalist party, Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), was in tears as she read out the results. Melech had introduced the law along with Nissim Vaturi, Knesset deputy speaker and member of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party.

© FRANCE 24
10:32

The law effectively enshrines capital punishment for Palestinians who "intentionally cause the death of a person with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel”.

It has sparked fierce criticism in Israel, the Palestinian territories and abroad for its retaliatory nature, de facto targeting of Palestinians and electorally motivated reasoning.
Death by default

The law says that Palestinians in the occupied West Bank – referred to as Judea and Samaria in the text – would face the death penalty by default if the homicide is classified as an act of terrorism by the Israeli military court, barring specific appeals.

The Knesset stated in Hebrew that the bill mandates that a “resident of the area, except for an Israeli citizen or Israel resident, who intentionally caused the death of a person in an act of terrorism, shall be imposed with the death penalty, unless the military court finds that special circumstances exist under which it is appropriate to impose a sentence of life imprisonment”. It remains unclear what the “special circumstances” are.

“Resident of the region”, in this case, refers to anyone registered in the region's population register or who resides in the region, according to the law. It excludes Israeli citizens or residents, which in this case means settlers.

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The law is not retroactive and will only apply to Palestinians arrested after it comes into effect. Death sentence "by hanging" would be carried out within 90 days of the final conviction, with a possible postponement of up to 180 days.

The Gaza Strip is not mentioned in the text, but a separate bill, which is currently being debated in the Knesset, is intended to establish a special court for the prosecution of those who participated in the October 7 massacre. The bill is set to be presented in parliament in the first week of the Knesset summer session, which begins on March 10.

Although the death penalty has been technically legal in limited forms since Israel's founding, the country has only carried out two state-authorised executions. The first took place in 1948, against an army captain wrongly accused of high treason. The second was against Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who was hanged for genocide and crimes against humanity in 1962.
Condemned at home and abroad

Palestinians were horrified by the law, and shuttered shops and public institutions across the main cities of Hebron, Ramallah, and Nablus in the West Bank on Wednesday. Dozens of citizens – including activists, political factions and civil society groups – also gathered to protest the law on the streets.

Ramallah-based psychologist Raman, 53, told news agency AFP that "there isn't a single person standing here who doesn't have a brother, a husband, a son, or even a neighbour in prison. There is no Palestinian family without a prisoner".
Palestinians demonstrate against the decision by Israel's parliament to approve the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis in Nablus, West Bank, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. © Majdi Mohammed, AP


Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah party called for general strikes, while Hamas said the passing of the law "reflected the bloody nature of the occupation and its policy based on killing and terrorism".

Minutes after the adoption of the Death Penalty for Terrorists Bill into law, Israeli human rights organisation Association for Civil Rights in Israel said they had filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court.

In a damning post on their website, they described the law as “depressing and infuriating”, condemning the “disgraceful jubilation surrounding such a repugnant law by the racist and extremist Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir and other members of the government”. They had earlier described the law as discriminatory, racist, and unconstitutional.

The Knesset "is not authorised to legislate directly for the West Bank, since the military commander is the legal sovereign in the occupied territory”, they pointed out.

© France 24
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Israeli rabbi and researcher Elhanan Miller shares that view. In an interview with FRANCE 24’s Arabic channel, he said he expected the law to be overturned by Israel’s Supreme Court – “It is illegal to apply Israeli law in the West Bank to Palestinians as it is an occupied territory under military control," he explained.

Several European countries have expressed their concern as well. Spain said the law was "a further step towards apartheid", and the EU urged Israel to “abide by its previous position”, saying that the approval of the Death Penalty Bill “marks a grave regression”, noting its “de facto discriminatory character”.

The Council of Europe has threatened to revoke Israel's observer status, while the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights believes that the application of this law would be considered a war crime.

Human rights organisation Amnesty International denounced the law as "carte blanche to execute Palestinians while stripping away the most basic fair-trial safeguards", and pointed out that Israeli military courts had a "conviction rate of over 99% for Palestinian defendants."
A politically motivated law

“This judiciary is a stain on Israel, with its discrimination between Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank,” said Miller. “It is an unjust law for developed and advanced Western countries, introduced by the extremist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir in an attempt to score points before the elections.” The next parliamentary elections must be held before October 27, 2026.

“Netanyahu is afraid of the coming elections and wants to curry favour with the Israeli ideological right, at the expense of Israel’s image in the world and in the West in particular [where this law is criticized],” Miller added.

Ben-Gvir doesn't deny the political context, gloating on X about fulfilling his election promise, saying in Hebrew, " We promised. We delivered."

Akram Hassoun, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament and member of Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition, voted in favour of the bill and acknowledged the political motivations.

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"This law was proposed by the coalition to which I belong," he explained on FRANCE 24's Arabic channel. "If you want this coalition to support you on an issue that concerns Israeli Arabs, you have to support what concerns them."

Lamenting what he considers "a misinterpretation of the text by the media in an electoral context", Hassoun said that, fundamentally, the law targets "terrorists who want to kill innocent people" and "is intended as a deterrent for any citizen who does not believe in the sanctity of life, so that no one is killed, neither Arab nor Jew".

He added: "Anyone who takes another person's life without any reason must be executed. They can be Jewish, Arab, Muslim, Christian, Druze, or of any other faith."

When asked if he supported applying the law to an Israeli settler who killed a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, he said: "I don't think about that kind of case, but anyone who takes the life of a Palestinian in a terrorist attack will have this law applied to them."

The law, however, explicitly excludes this scenario.

This article has been translated from the original in French.