The Gaza Flotilla

Mavi Marmara

The story of the May 31, 2010 Gaza flotilla actually begins a few years earlier in June 7-15, 2007, when the terrorist Hamas organization, after winning the majority in the Palestinian Legislative election of 2006, initiated a violent blood soaked coup of the Gaza strip. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed and many hundreds of Palestinians were wounded. Hamas targeted and killed civilians, held public executions of Fatah supporters, (Fatah is the opposition party to Hamas) threw prisoners off high-rise apartment buildings, and engaged in shooting their guns from jeeps marked with “TV” insignias. Such actions by Hamas were clear violations of international humanitarian law and in fact constituted war crimes.

As a result of the illegal takeover, the territory formally controlled by the Palestinian Authority is now divided into two entities: the Hamas-controlled government of the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, governed by the Palestinian National Authority.

Hamas is a terrorist organization with an official policy position to end Israel’s existence as a Jewish State. Hamas is the organization responsible for firing over 6 thousand rockets against Israeli civilians, Israeli homes and schools. After its illegal takeover of Gaza, both Israel and Egypt declared a blockade against Hamas controlled Gaza to prevent weapons, armaments, Iranian missiles, or war material that could be used to produce weapons or missiles to enter Gaza. The purpose of the blockade was to prevent the possibility that Hamas would have weapons to carry out its threat to destroy Israel.

Under international law Israel is within its rights to establish a maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip, since Gaza is ruled by Hamas, a hostile terrorist entity that has launched missiles into Israel targeting and killing civilians, and has also infiltrated and attempted to infiltrate into Israel in order to carry out attacks. There is therefore a state of armed conflict between Hamas-ruled Gaza and the State of Israel. In such a situation Israel is permitted, under International Law, to blockade the territory of its adversary, providing the blockade does not result in starving the civilian population.

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