Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels in the Gaza Strip. Following the takeover, Egypt and Israel largely sealed their border crossings with Gaza, on the grounds that Fatah had fled and was no longer providing security on the Palestinian side.<ref name="nytimes.com/">Isabel Kershner. Abbas’s Premier Tells Israel to Reopen Gaza. New York Times. 14 December 2007.</ref> So Karni and Rafah checkpoints were closed again, resulting in "severe personal and economic hardship for Gaza's 1,4 million population", according to OCHA. Thousands of travelers have been stranded on both sides of the border. The blockade of the Gaza Strip has caused a shortage of certain basic products, especially construction
Gaza Strip Gaza Strip which argued that it remained occupied. The Supreme Court ruled that Israel has not exercised effective control over the Gaza Strip since 2005, and accordingly, it was no longer occupied. In a legal analysis Hanne Cuyckens agrees with the Israeli position that Gaza is no longer occupied - "Gaza is not technically occupied, given that there is no longer any effective control in the sense of Article 42 of the Hague Regulations. ... Even though the majority argues that the Gaza Strip is still occupied, the effective control test at the core of the law of occupation is