A fact-check on a statement by Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, a Likud lawmaker, concluded that his claim was false. Dichter told Kan Bet on June 21, 2026, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government would never take steps against Hezbollah like those of the previous government, which he said involved “giving Israeli sovereign territory” to gain calm.
The remark referred to the Israel-Lebanon maritime agreement signed in October 2022, when Yair Lapid was prime minister. The deal resolved a years-long dispute over about 860 square kilometers of overlapping maritime claims between Israel’s Line 1 and Lebanon’s Line 23. Under the agreement, the sides accepted a permanent boundary based on Line 23. The first 5 kilometers from the coast kept the status quo, in line with Israel’s buoy line established after its 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon. In the next 5 kilometers, up to the territorial waters limit of 12 nautical miles, the delimitation also followed Line 23.
The question examined by the High Court was whether this area had actually been under Israeli sovereignty, since that would have triggered Israel’s Basic Law on a referendum. That law requires Knesset approval and then a public referendum if the government signs an agreement removing Israeli law, jurisdiction, and administration from territory where they apply. Petitioners argued the agreement met that definition.
Justice Uzi Fogelman, joined by Justices Esther Hayut and Noam Sohlberg, rejected that argument. He ruled that “the territory subject to the agreement is not territory to which the law, jurisdiction and administration of the State of Israel apply.” He added that the government had the tools to formally extend those powers to the area but chose not to, and that ministries deliberately avoided sovereign acts north of Line 23, including military activity. In a response, Dichter insisted that the coast out to 24 kilometers is “Israeli sovereign territory,” but the fact-check concluded that his claim does not match the court ruling.
The bottom line, according to the piece, is that the 2022 agreement did not transfer territory that was under Israeli sovereignty, so Dichter’s accusation was inaccurate.
