The State of Israel informed the United Nations Human Rights Committee at its hearing Wednesday in Geneva that the Jewish State is within its legal right to maintain the maritime blockade of Gaza.
“The blockade is legitimate under international law,” Israeli envoy Sari Rubenstein told the committee, noting that “a blockade can be imposed on the sea.”
The UNHRC has spent the past two days reviewing the way in which Israel has implemented its obligations under the UN treaty on civil and political rights.
“I think we cannot sweep aside with a stroke of the hand the application of the treaty in the Palestinian territories,” said a member of the committee, Christine Chanet, who was quoted by the AFP news service.
The committee contends that Israel must take responsibility for the 1.5 million residents of Gaza since it has blockaded the region. However, Israel notes that it has not occupied Gaza since the 2005 unilateral Disengagement from the region, in which nearly 10,000 Jews were expelled from their homes.
That fact, plus the choke-hold over the region by the Hamas terrorist organization, which seized control over Gaza in 2007 in a militia war with the rival Fatah faction, means “Israel can clearly not be said to have effective control in the Gaza Strip,” noted Israel's Deputy Attorney General Malkiel Blass.
The treaty, Blass reminded the committee, “is a territorially-bound convention and does not apply, nor was it intended to apply, to areas outside its national territory.”
The hearing was held in response to a clash several weeks ago between Israeli Navy commandos and terror activists aboard the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara, one of six in an “aid flotilla” sent to break the blockade of Gaza.
Nine of the terrorists died in the clash after attacking the Israeli commandos who boarded the vessel to redirect it to Ashdod port. All of the dead were members of the Turkish IHH organization, which has been linked to terrorist activity.
Although the other five ships did indeed carry items for the people of Gaza, the Mavi Marmara was found to be carrying no aid at all when its hold was searched after arriving in Ashdod port.
“These were not activists for peace, but messengers of death,” pointed out Israeli Ambassador Aharon Leshno, who testified on the second day of the hearing. He added that “of the nine dead, seven had said they wished to die on board these vessels” in statements made to the media prior to setting sail on their mission.