A map of the Middle East published on August 6, 2026 by the official X account of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows a part of southern Lebanon annexed by Israel. (Credit: Photo Telegram/@StateofIsraelOfficial)
BEIRUT — The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a map on its X account on Aug. 6 showing Lebanon missing part of its southern territory, which appears to be annexed to Israeli territory. The post quickly triggered official Lebanese protests to Washington before being deleted from X by the Israeli ministry in the past 24 hours. However, the same map was published Sunday on the official Telegram account of the Israeli state, where it remained visible on Monday.
The document is intended to illustrate the level of malnutrition in several countries in the region and support Israel’s claim that there is no famine in the besieged and largely destroyed Gaza Strip, following the Israeli offensive launched after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. "A new study commissioned by UNICEF shows that the food situation in Gaza — contrary to all propaganda — is now better than that of all neighboring Arab countries, and even some European countries," Tel Aviv says in the accompanying text. The study in question finds that that "crises linked to food security and child nutrition persist in Gaza despite some fragile progress," while UNICEF confirmed for the first time a "famine" in the Palestinian enclave in August 2025.
The map itself shows Lebanon missing part of its southern territory, visibly annexed to northern Israel, while the Israeli army has occupied more than 600 square kilometers of territory in southern Lebanon since the resumption of the war with Hezbollah on March 2, as part of the broader regional conflict with Iran.
'What happened does not reassure us'
An official Lebanese source told L’Orient-Le Jour on Monday that President Joseph Aoun had “contacted the Americans as well as other parties” and “exerted pressure on this issue,” which initially led to the deletion of the English-language post containing the map. It remained visible for a time on the Arabic-language X account of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs before also being removed, the source added. “What happened does not reassure us and seems to reveal Israeli intentions,” the source said. Contacted by L’OLJ, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
According to the Lebanese site al-Modon, Lebanon's ambassador to the United States, Nada Hamadeh, in turn contacted the U.S. State Department to convey Beirut's position and ask Washington to intervene with Israel to have the map taken down.
The border between Lebanon and Israel appears on the map much farther north than the Blue Line, while Israel has imposed a “yellow line” to mark the area it occupies in southern Lebanon, calling it a “security zone.” In the framework agreement signed June 26 between Lebanon and Israel under Washington’s auspices, Tel Aviv claims to have “no territorial ambitions in Lebanon.” Other geographical inaccuracies also appear on the map, such as the absence of a border between Gaza and Egypt and approximate borders drawn around the occupied West Bank, which appears to be confused with the Syrian Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in 1967 and annexed in 1981.
Respect for Lebanese borders
Hezbollah reacted Sunday to the Israeli map, saying it “unambiguously confirms the reality of Israeli ambitions regarding Lebanon, its territory, its wealth and its resources — ambitions that Israel has not given up on and will not give up on.” According to the group, Israel’s participation in direct negotiations with Lebanese authorities “is nothing but a blatant attempt to buy time and impose new facts on the ground.” In a particularly harsh statement toward the Lebanese government, Hezbollah called for an end to direct negotiations with Israel and action on the political, diplomatic and legal levels, specifically calling for an emergency meeting of the Higher Defense Council and the filing of a complaint with the U.N. Security Council.
The deletion of the map on X does not appear to have closed the matter for Beirut. According to al-Modon, Lebanese authorities want to put the issue on the agenda for the next round of negotiations with Israel — which may not take place, as Lebanon recently threatened to suspend direct talks with the Israeli state. Beirut is seeking above all a clear and unambiguous position from Israel regarding respect for Lebanon’s international borders. The issue is all the more sensitive as the Israeli army continues demolition operations and earthworks in southern Lebanon despite the cease-fire that came into effect in mid-June with Hezbollah.
