The Gaza blockade

What happened

In June 2007, Hamas took Gaza by force, winning a series of armed victories over Palestinian Authority and Fatah units loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, who responded by dismissing the Hamas government and appointing a replacement in the West Bank. ³ Israel and Egypt both tightened their crossings with Gaza after that. ⁶ The resulting system, known as the closure regime or the blockade, was aimed at undermining Hamas's hold on the territory. ³

The land crossings policy and the naval blockade are two separate measures, and they arrived a year and a half apart. The land restrictions came first, tightening after the June 2007 takeover. ¹ The naval blockade came later, declared on Jan. 3, 2009, and it was a separate legal instrument with a separate purpose. ¹ Israel has kept the two policies distinct ever since. The land restrictions have loosened and tightened repeatedly; the naval blockade has not been altered since the day it was declared. ¹

Israel controlled Erez, for people, and Kerem Shalom, the commercial crossing through which fuel and goods entered. ⁴ Egypt controlled Rafah, in the south, which handled people rather than cargo. ⁴ After a militant attack in Sinai, Egypt shut Rafah on Oct. 24, 2014, in what the UN called the longest closure recorded since 2007, leaving Gaza dependent on Kerem Shalom. ⁴ Egypt also demolished dozens of homes along its side of the border in 2014 and 2015 to clear a buffer zone. ⁶ Before that closure, Rafah traffic was limited to humanitarian cases: patients, students, pilgrims, and holders of foreign passports. ⁴ By late November, roughly 30,000 people were waiting to get out and about 6,000 Palestinians were stranded outside. ⁴

A second economy ran under the border. After 2005, Hamas expanded a tunnel network beneath the Gaza-Egypt line that became the territory's main import channel and its rearmament route, with roughly 7,000 people working more than 1,000 tunnels. ³ Through them came fertilizer, sugar, and fuel oil for homemade Qassam rockets, along with mortars, small arms, and longer-range rockets thought to originate in Iran or China. ³

On May 31, 2010, at 4:26 a.m., Israeli forces boarded six vessels 72 nautical miles from land. ¹ The flotilla, carrying people and humanitarian supplies, had been ordered to change course because the coast of Gaza was under naval blockade. ¹ Nine passengers were killed on the Mavi Marmara and many others were wounded. ¹ The UN Secretary-General appointed a panel of inquiry, chaired by former New Zealand prime minister Geoffrey Palmer, which reported in September 2011 and made findings in every direction. It found the naval blockade "was imposed as a legitimate security measure" and that its implementation complied with international law. ¹ It found the flotilla "acted recklessly in attempting to breach the naval blockade," with serious questions about the conduct and objectives of the organizers, particularly the Turkish group IHH. ¹ It found Israeli commandos met significant, organized, violent resistance on boarding, with three soldiers captured and mistreated. ¹ And it found Israel's decision to board with that much force at that distance, with no final warning, "excessive and unreasonable," and the nine deaths "unacceptable," noting that most of the dead were shot multiple times, including in the back or at close range, and that Israel had given the panel no satisfactory explanation. ¹ The panel was careful to say it was not a court and was not adjudicating liability. ¹

Why it still matters

The legality argument splits along the seam between the two policies.

The case for the blockade is the one Palmer accepted. More than 5,000 rockets, missiles, and mortars were fired from Gaza at Israel between 2005 and January 2009, and attacks since 2001 had killed more than 25 people and wounded hundreds. ¹ The naval blockade's stated purpose was to keep weapons, ammunition, military supplies, and people from entering Gaza by sea, and to stop Hamas operatives sailing out with explosive-laden boats. ¹ It was declared and notified properly, with coordinates published in a Notice to Mariners and broadcast twice daily. ¹ Palmer found no material supporting the claim that Israel intended to starve or collectively punish Gaza's civilians, and noted that maritime interceptions of weapons shipments began before the 2007 takeover, more than a year before the blockade existed. ¹ It also found the humanitarian impact of the naval blockade specifically to be slight, because Gaza has no real port and can handle only small fishing vessels, so bulk supplies were never arriving by sea in the first place. ¹ Israel's own answer to the collective punishment charge is definitional: the term refers to criminal-type penalties imposed on people for another's guilt, which Israel says the closure is not. ⁶

The case against the blockade rests on the land crossings, and its most authoritative statement came from the International Committee of the Red Cross. On June 14, 2010, the ICRC said publicly that "the whole of Gaza's civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility" and that "the closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law." ² It counted about 80 categories of goods permitted into Gaza that year, double the year before, against more than 4,000 items before the closure. ² Nearly 90 percent of Gaza's 4,000 fishermen were poor or very poor, up from half in 2008. ² Power was cut about seven hours a day, and fuel shortages forced hospitals to cancel elective surgery three times that year. ²

Palmer did not endorse that legal conclusion, but it did not dismiss the underlying facts either. It called the land access procedures "unsustainable," recorded that Gaza's unemployment rate was 39 percent in a territory of 1.43 million people, 70 percent of them refugees, and noted that Israel's own commission acknowledged the crossings policy was designed to weaken the economy so as to degrade Hamas's ability to attack Israel. ¹

Israel did ease after the flotilla. On June 20, 2010, it announced a package of measures; on July 5 it switched from a list of goods allowed in to a list of goods kept out; on Dec. 8 it permitted exports again. ¹ The Israeli Supreme Court had already set the floor two years earlier, holding in Al-Bassiouni that Israel has no duty to supply unlimited electricity and fuel to Gaza but must allow through what meets "essential humanitarian needs," and finding that since September 2005 Israel no longer has effective control over what happens inside the Strip. ⁵

The words you'll hear

Closure regime. The system of restrictions on the movement of people and goods into and out of Gaza that Israel and Egypt tightened after Hamas took the territory in June 2007. ³

Naval blockade. A distinct legal measure declared by Israel on Jan. 3, 2009, covering Gaza's coast, announced through a Notice to Mariners with published coordinates. ¹

Kerem Shalom. The Israeli-controlled commercial crossing through which fuel and goods enter Gaza, and the crossing Gaza fell back on entirely when Egypt closed Rafah in October 2014. ⁴

Rafah. The Egyptian-controlled crossing in southern Gaza, used mainly for the movement of people, opened and closed at Cairo's discretion. ⁴

Collective punishment. Punishing a population for acts it did not commit, prohibited by international humanitarian law. The ICRC applied the term to the closure in June 2010; Israel replies that the term means criminal-type penalties imposed for another's guilt and does not fit. ²⁶

The Palmer Report. The September 2011 UN panel inquiry into the flotilla, which found the naval blockade legal, the flotilla reckless, and Israel's boarding excessive and unreasonable. ¹