THE ONE STATE SOLUTION IS OCCUPATION:

In 2007, Israel imposed a policy of land closure on the Gaza Strip, severely restricting the movement of people and goods in and out of the territory as a punishment for Hamas's 2006 electoral victory. A naval blockade followed in 2009, tightening the vice on the besieged population.

Under the land-and-sea blockade, Israel has deprived the population of food, medical supplies, and building equipment--not to mention a long, sundry list of other basics items (light bulbs and baby formula, mattresses and blankets, shampoo and conditioner). The naval blockade is Israel's legal justification for the interception of successive Freedom Flotillas carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza: interceptions which would otherwise contravene the freedom of the high seas in international law.

Legal experts have decried the unlawfulness of Israel's blockade under international humanitarian law (the technical term for the laws of war): because it violates the restriction on blockades with the purpose or effect of civilian starvation; because it violates the prohibition on collective punishment of civilian populations during war; because it violates Israel's obligation as an occupying power to ensure adequate supply of food and medicine to the occupied. (Israel denies that it occupies Gaza, because it formally withdrew from the territory in 2005. However, due to Israel's continued exertion of multiple forms of power in the Gaza Strip--including control of the territory's land crossings, territorial waters, airspace, telecommunications, and electricity; deployment of military incursions, rocket attacks, and sonic booms; management of the Palestinian Population Registry; and regular exercise of its capacity to invade Gaza, and arrest and prosecute its residents--multiple authorities have concluded that Gaza is still occupied.)

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