Legal Status
The UN, Human Rights Watch and other international bodies and NGOs consider Israel to be the occupying power of the Gaza Strip as Israel controls Gaza's airspace and territorial waters, and does not allow the movement of goods in or out of Gaza by air or sea (only by land). However, the border crossing into Egypt is not controlled by Israel; like Israel, Egypt has alternately restricted or allowed goods and people to cross that terrestrial border. Israel states that Gaza is no longer occupied, inasmuch as Israel does not exercise effective control or authority over any land or institutions in the Gaza Strip. Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel Tzipi Livni stated in January, 2008: "Israel got out of Gaza. It dismantled its settlements there. No Israeli soldiers were left there after the disengagement." After Israel withdrew in 2005, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas declared that the legal status of the areas slated for evacuation had not changed, and this lack of clarity continued after Operation Cast Lead and the Israeli invasion of Gaza in January 2009.
In his statement on the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur wrote that international humanitarian law applied to Israel "in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war." In a 2009 interview on Democracy Now Christopher Gunness, spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) called Israel an occupying power. However, Meagan Buren, Senior Adviser to the pro-Israeli media group Israel Project, contested that characterization.
In 2012, the co-founder of Hamas, Rahul, stated that Gaza was no longer occupied.
Read more about this topic: Gaza Strip
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