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Israel’s military map has failed to show the country’s control of the country since the Gaza war began on October 7, 2023. A new study by Al Jazeera’s open investigative team shows that the Israeli army has established a military presence across the Gaza Strip, southern Lebanon, and southern Syria that is about 1,000 kilometers the size of New York. City.
The newly declared territory is about 5 percent of Israel’s territory before October 2023, which includes the occupied Palestinian territories and the Syrian Golan Heights.
Political and military experts told Al Jazeera that Israel’s large expansion of territories is part of a plan of “intellectual deception” and “geographical engineering”. Ultimately, it was designed to cover up Israel’s failure to achieve its military goals, appease right-wing interests, impose a new reality and avoid international accountability.
‘Calculated chaos’ is the Yellow Line
Al Jazeera’s investigation compared official Israeli maps published following various ceasefire agreements with satellite images, geographic information systems (GIS), and statistics from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). In Gaza and Lebanon, these findings show a gap between the declared borders and actual activities on the ground.
In Gaza, the Israeli army established a “Yellow Line” following the October 2025 agreement to define its control of about 200sq km (77sq miles). However physical markers are pushed beyond these limits. For example, in northern Gaza, Israel expanded its control from 67.3sq km (26sq miles) to 73.9sq km (28.5sq miles), then swallowed 54.7 percent of the north. Satellite imagery has also confirmed large-scale, undeclared demolitions outside of declared areas, such as in the Shujayea area.
A similar pattern appeared in southern Lebanon after the end of April 2026. Although official maps say a protected area of 570sq km (220sq miles), satellite images taken soon after showed the demolition of buildings in towns outside the declared lines, such as Zawtar al-Sharqiya.
Ehab Jabareen, an expert on Israeli affairs, described this as a policy of “calculated confusion” and “intellectual deception”.
“Political organizations are announcing the Yellow Line in Washington and the mediators … He said that Israel wants the results of operations without announcement, using “division of responsibilities” where the diplomats say they follow while the soldiers eat the land.
Geography rather than success
Analysts argue that the rapid expansion of territory protects the military’s weaknesses. Mohannad Mustafa, an expert on Israeli politics, said that expanding Israel’s sovereignty is another direct way to win the war against their perceived enemies.
“In the absence of military resolution and the achievement of military objectives, the alternative is to expand and expand territories,” Mustafa said. He added that the Israeli political group wants to occupy up to 70 percent of the Gaza Strip, turning the residential areas into unsafe areas.
Mamoun Abu Amer, a political analyst, explained that the process works on four interrelated levels: security-related, political, ideological, and emotional.
Abu Amer also said that having this share from the Arab countries gives Israel the opportunity to take advantage of the political situation, as well as feeding the psychological needs within the Israeli people to provide strength after the shock of the attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023. “It gives psychological confirmation to the people … to show that Israel is strong and capable of self-control,” he said.
In addition, analysts say, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be using the seizure of the site to sell an “image of success” to his hometown. “Because they can’t say that Hamas is over, or that Hezbollah is disarmed, or that Iran is deterred… governing the world becomes the ‘language of victory’ when the most successful language of war will fail,” Jabareen said.
Syria’s ‘silent’ movement
In southern Syria, the survey uncovered the reality of heavily entrenched military bases that do not appear on official Israeli maps.
Unlike Gaza and Lebanon, there is no designated “Yellow Line” in Syria. Instead, Israel has built a permanent group of military units beyond the “alpha” line – the 1974 demarcation line – and created a control zone of 235sq km (91sq miles) from Jabal al-Sheikh (Mount Hermon) to the Yarmouk River.
Beyond these settlements, the survey documented more than 800 Israeli strikes on Syrian territory between December 2024 and January 2026, with one operation reaching 63km (40 miles) inside Deraa.
Jabareen noted that the Syrian front is a “quiet operation”. By operating without formal declarations, Israel avoids turning its heritage into a serious international legal issue. “Israel is drawing new security positions before a new Syrian state is established, or before a new understanding of US territory,” Jabareen said.
The war on infrastructure damage
Although the annexation of 1,000sq km (386sq miles) satisfies domestic ideological groups and provides the illusion of temporary security, experts say the strategy is unsustainable.
Both Jabareen and Abu Amer said that Israel’s historic attempt to maintain a “security belt” in southern Lebanon ended in chaos in 2000. Today, acting on “imperialist sentiments”, Israel is overwhelmingly defeating its limited reserve forces and a strained economy.
“When you want to control 1,000sq km, we’re not talking about maps; you’re talking about supply lines, tanks, engineers, bulldozers, fences, food, fuel, medical evacuation, and night patrols,” Jabareen said. He added that although Israel wants smaller areas to reduce the conflict, “it is creating endless conflicts with the three barbarian regions”, and turning their success into a form.
Mustafa confirmed that the long campaign of expulsion and destruction was finally supported by the international community. “Israel is growing because there is no international conflict,” he said, warning that the project is driven by the belief that “having land is the solution to all problems”.
