“Israel left Gaza in 2005, so Gaza is no longer occupied”

Under international humanitarian law, territory is occupied when it is under the effective control of a hostile army (Hague Regulations, 1907, Art. 42); the occupier need not keep soldiers on every street corner if it controls the territory from without. Analyzing the disengagement plan before it was executed, Human Rights Watch concluded in October 2004 that “disengagement” would not end the occupation: Israel would retain control over Gaza’s land crossings, airspace and territorial waters, would allow no operating seaport or airport, and would continue to control the Palestinian population registry — the database determining who legally exists and may move — as well as the tax and customs system of the Gaza–West Bank customs envelope. All of that remained true after August 2005, and from 2007 Israel added a comprehensive closure controlling the movement of goods and people.

The United Nations never changed Gaza’s legal status. On 8 January 2009 — more than three years after the disengagement — the Security Council adopted Resolution 1860, stressing “that the Gaza Strip constitutes an integral part of the territory occupied in 1967 and will be a part of the Palestinian state.” The International Committee of the Red Cross likewise continues to work on the premise of an occupation of the Palestinian territory including Gaza, and the UN’s humanitarian office for the area is, to this day, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the “occupied Palestinian territory.”

In July 2024 the International Court of Justice, treating the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem as the single occupied Palestinian territory, held Israel’s continued presence there unlawful and found that the occupation violates the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. The withdrawal of settlements and bases from inside Gaza in 2005 was real; the end of occupation was not — the control simply moved to the perimeter, the sea and the sky.

Sources

• Human Rights Watch, “Israel: ‘Disengagement’ Will Not End Gaza Occupation” (28 October 2004)
• UN Security Council Resolution 1860 (2009), full text via UN press release SC/9567
• ICRC — Israel and the occupied territories
• UN OCHA — occupied Palestinian territory