Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt for the Palestinian Liberation Army. On June 5, 1967, in an overheated political atmosphere, weeks after Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran and cut off Israeli shipping, Israel launched an attack against Egypt, beginning the Six-Day War. It rapidly defeated the surrounding Arab states and took control of, among other areas, the Gaza Strip. International pressure mounted on Israel to withdraw from the territories. On November 22, 1967, the UN Security Council adopted UN Security Council Resolution 242, which called for Israeli withdrawal from territories it captured in 1967 in return for peace with its Arab neighbors. In 1978, Israel
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