Blockade of the Gaza Strip Blockade of the Gaza Strip The blockade of the Gaza Strip is the ongoing land, air, and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip imposed by Israel and Egypt since 2007. The system of control imposed by Israel is sometimes known as the indirect occupation of the Gaza Strip. One year after the 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip by Israel, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election, and Israel and the Quartet on the Middle East ceased providing aid to the Palestinian Authority and imposed sanctions against the PA, because Hamas would not agree to the conditions for continued aid: namely,
Gaza Strip Human Rights Watch has declared at the UN Human Rights Council that it views Israel as a "de facto" occupying power in the Gaza Strip, even though Israel has no military or other presence, because the Oslo Accords authorize Israel to control the airspace and the territorial sea. 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." Amnesty International, the World Health Organization, Oxfam, the International Committee of the