Lebanese Skeptical Israeli Election Will Alter Occupation Policy in South

Beirut, Lebanon – As Israel’s October 27 election approaches, the prospect of a government change looms over the administration that has directed the invasion and reoccupation of southern Lebanon. Yet across the border, expectations that new Israeli leadership might shift policy toward its neighbors remain muted.

“I don’t think anything major – or at all – will change for Lebanon even if there’s a change in [Israeli] leadership,” said Fouad Debs, a Beirut resident and lawyer. “Any internal change might lead to small, insignificant adjustments just to show the outside world that Israeli society and politics are not messed up or evil.”

For many Lebanese, a history of airspace violations, ground incursions, and occupation has cemented deep distrust, regardless of who holds power in Tel Aviv.

“The proof is in what people [in Israel] are saying as the elections [approach],” said Karim Safieddine, a Beirut-based nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. “No one is promising withdrawal, and no one is addressing south Lebanon as a crisis or a mistake. The general Israeli establishment looks at Lebanon as its prize.”

Israel and the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah have clashed with varying intensity since October 2023, following the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza. Israel twice escalated the conflict – first in September 2024 and again in March 2025, coinciding with the onset of U.S.-Israeli hostilities against Iran.

In June, after direct negotiations that Hezbollah rejected, Israel and the Lebanese government signed a U.S.-brokered framework agreement outlining a phased Israeli withdrawal. Still, Israeli forces continue to occupy large swaths of the south, where systematic demolition of homes and infrastructure across dozens of villages has displaced more than one million people.

Lebanese opinion on how to confront Israel remains divided, according to a June 2026 survey by Lebanese American University professor Jad Melki and his team. While 54 percent of respondents supported diplomacy and 35 percent favored armed resistance, the poll found near-unanimous hostility: 87 percent viewed Israel as an enemy.

Netanyahu vs. Architect of the Dahiyeh Doctrine

In next week’s vote, the primary challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who has overseen a war in Lebanon that has killed nearly 9,000 people since October 2023, including journalists, first responders, and children – is Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party.

Many Israelis see Eisenkot as a departure from Netanyahu, who faces corruption trials and criticism over the October 2023 security failures and the prioritization of military operations in Gaza over the release of Israeli captives.

In Lebanon, however, the prevailing view is that any Netanyahu successor is unlikely to abandon the current policy of occupation and destruction. Eisenkot, a former general and chief of staff, carries his own legacy in Lebanon. He served as northern front commander during the 2006 war and authored the Dahiyeh Doctrine – a strategy of disproportionate damage and destruction now being applied in both Gaza and Lebanon. More recently, he has criticized Netanyahu for halting strikes on Beirut since April under U.S. pressure, arguing the military should target Hezbollah anywhere in Lebanon.

‘Normalised Dehumanisation’

Lebanese analysts note that although Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges in Gaza, his rivals have largely attacked him from the right on domestic grounds, accusing him of being soft on security.

“Those who have come forward as candidates in Israeli elections criticize Netanyahu and his handling of the war,” said Elia Ayoub, a Lebanese researcher and podcaster. “They’re not criticizing him based on any kind of humanitarianism or anything related to human rights.”

Ayoub said the attitude toward Lebanon and other peoples in the region extends beyond the current government. He pointed to the governmental and societal backlash against NAZA, a documentary by Israeli journalists in which soldiers describe the calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

“There’s a profoundly dehumanising discourse that is completely normalised in Israeli society, and the backlash against any pushback is drastic,” Ayoub said. “I don’t necessarily believe that it’s going to change Israeli policy toward Lebanon.”

Since the June framework agreement, Lebanon has remained in limbo. Active fighting has largely ceased, yet Israel continues its demolition campaign with little resistance. As the occupation deepens, many Lebanese fear it could persist for another generation.

“Definitely, it’s a prolonged situation of neither war nor peace,” Safieddine said. “We’re going to be living in this grey area for a very long time.”

With next week’s election unlikely to alter Israel’s policies toward Lebanon or the wider region, Ayoub emphasized the stakes of the U.S. midterm elections on November 3.

“The U.S. elections are just as important, if not more important,” he said, “because they tend to determine how much the Israelis feel emboldened toward Palestinians first and foremost, but of course toward Lebanon as well, and Syria to a large extent.”

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