Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was launched on Saturday, October 7 against Israel from the Gaza Strip, which has been under Israeli blockade since 2007. It has once again become necessary to address the many legal issues such as the rights and responsibilities of the Palestinian and Israeli sides in the context of international law, as well as the legality of their actions and methods. Israel’s military response to the operation prompts a series of legal considerations. At this stage, however, the most important one is to determine within what limits and up to what extent Israel, which has invoked its right of self-defense, can legally exercise this right.

Israel’s expansive control of occupied territories

When Israel was established in 1948, it was based on a non-binding UN General Assembly resolution which allocated a territory to a Jewish state to be established on Palestinian territories. In other words, the resolution itself did not establish a Jewish state—it defined a region where the state would be established. The resolution also defined a region where an Arab state would be established and proclaimed Jerusalem to hold international status.  With and following the establishment of Israel, Resolution 181 was never properly followed. Especially with the 1967 war, Israel went far beyond the 181 Resolution. Today, there is a large area known as the “Occupied Territories,” which Israel controls, but which are unequivocally Palestinian territories. Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is omnipotent and omnipresent: the presence of Israeli soldiers, the lack of separation between East and West Jerusalem, Gaza being essentially an open-air prison. The Gaza Strip is a narrow band of Palestinian land on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, which stretches for about 40 kilometers and at its deepest measures about 12 kilometers. It is said that about two million people try to live here in very difficult conditions. Since 2007, Israel has been imposing a blockade regarding what can go in and what can come out... Read more on Politics Today: The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict in the Context of International Law [Politics Today, October 12, 2023]