Israel–Gaza barrier the Palestinian Authority with limited administrative control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Pursuant to the Accords, Israel has continued to maintain control of the Gaza Strip's airspace, land borders (with the exception of Gaza's border with Egypt, abandoned by Israel in 2005), and territorial waters. Israel started construction of the first long barrier between the Gaza Strip and Israel in 1994. In the 1994 Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, it was agreed that "the security fence erected by Israel around the Gaza Strip shall remain in place and that the line demarcated by
Blockade of the Gaza Strip entry into the Gaza strip by Israel. He commented that the Israeli government sometimes would "not make it easy for its friends to explain why it behaves the way it does." A spokesperson for Israel's Foreign Ministry responded that Israel would have been obliged to allow any other European minister entry if it had allowed Niebel to visit the Gaza strip, thus conferring additional legitimacy to the Hamas government. Chris Gunness from UNRWA criticised Israel's move to ease the blockade as not being adequate, saying that "Even if the blockade is eased it remains illegal under international law as it