Gaza Strip had broken out in Gaza when, apparently under a U.S.-backed plan, Fatah contested Hamas’s administration. Hamas emerged the victor and expelled Fatah-allied officials and members of the PA's security apparatus from the Strip, and has remained the sole governing power in Gaza since that date. Gaza was part of the Ottoman Empire, before it was occupied by the United Kingdom (1918–1948), Egypt (1948–1967), and then Israel, which in 1994 granted the Palestinian Authority in Gaza limited self-governance through the Oslo Accords. Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been "de facto" governed by Hamas, which claims to represent the Palestinian National
Blockade of the Gaza Strip case of an armed conflict or occupation, in the hands of a power of which they are not nationals. To reiterate: Israel instituted the blockade against the Gaza Strip not in response to a violent attack, but rather in response to Hamas's ascension to exclusive authority in the Gaza Strip, and earlier in response to the Hamas victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections. Israel, in short, engaged in an act of war against an occupied people, and violated its legal obligations to them long before Operation Cast Lead had commenced. The Global International Humanitarian Law Centre of Diakonia pointed out