Can Trump really ‘take over’ Gaza? The international law examined
The question of who owns Gaza has been a complicated one for decades - since the Ottoman Empire, the last sovereign entity to legally own the territory, ceded ownership of the territory in 1923.
Under international law, sovereignty means that a government possesses full control over affairs within a geographical area or territorial limit. Deciding whether Gaza is sovereign is not an exact science but a matter of diplomatic process.
Can Trump transfer Palestinians out of Gaza?
The legal barrier to President Trump, a former real estate mogul, is the UN, whose charter prohibits the threat or use of force to transfer a population and calls for respect for the sovereignty of other states.
The Ottoman Empire, the last sovereign entity to legally own the territory, ceded ownership of Gaza via the Treaty of Lausanne, signed in 1923.
Under international law, Israel is responsible for Gaza in a de facto occupation that has existed since 1967, and includes responsibility for facilities and services, including fuel, water and electricity.
No other sovereign entity subsists, because the territory is ruled by Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organisation by the United States, European Union and Britain.
It governs the territory through its own ad hoc bodies, including the police and civil service, whose members have been targeted by Israel since the start of the war. Israel’s occupation has left a vacuum in Gaza’s sovereign status. Control could be taken by force or diplomacy.
Trump has also said people “like the idea” of Israel claiming sovereignty over the West Bank, and that discussions with Israeli representatives will take place over the next month to decide on the fate of the land.
Is Gaza Palestinian territory?
Both the West Bank and Gaza are part of land Palestinians seek as part of their future state, and are Palestinian territories under international law.
However, Trump’s proposal aligns with the vision of far-right Israelis and Jewish settlers who live in the West Bank, who call the land Judea and Samaria, the biblical name for the area that is seen by them as their homeland and birthright. Trump has removed sanctions that the previous administration imposed on violent settlers in the West Bank as one of his first moves in office this term, foreshadowing a policy that breaks with international law as it defines settlements in the occupied territories.
It is also a strategy that follows on from his first term, when he recognised a united Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Many consider East Jerusalem the capital of any future Palestinian state.
Trump’s plan goes against decades of American policy to push for a two-state solution and a comprehensive peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. To enact it, he would have to pay other countries including Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan to absorb the Gazan population — “some place where they can live and not die”, according to Trump. Arab nations have rejected the proposal.
Who owns Gaza?
Gaza, a thin strip of land between Egypt and modern Israel that runs along the coast of the Mediterranean, was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire until 1923, when it was taken over by Britain during the Mandate era.
Between 1949, the year after Israel was created, and 1956, Gaza was under Egyptian military rule, its population living in refugee camps across the territory established to house Palestinians who had fled or been expelled during war.
At the time the rule was recognised as occupation. After the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel occupied Sinai in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In Gaza, it built 21 Jewish settlements that went on to house some 9,000 Israeli civilians.
Under the Oslo Accords and the Arab-Israeli peace process, via agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the Palestinian Authority was set up to rule the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
This was designed to cover an interim period, before permanent talks for a mutually negotiated two-state solution. No solution ever materialised.
How did Hamas come to control Gaza?
Israel began restricting movement for Palestinians and in 1991 cancelled the “general exit permit” that had been available since 1970, enforcing strict permit regimes that subjected citizens in Gaza — and the West Bank — to ask Israel and its military for permission to enter and exit.
On May 4, 1994, Israel began withdrawing from Gaza, but with the breakdown of talks and the outbreak of the Second Intifada, the Oslo peace process came to a screeching halt.
The Israeli settlements were unilaterally evacuated in 2005 by Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, removing the last of its troops and dismantling its infrastructure.
The following year, Hamas, a nationalist movement and Islamic militant group staunchly opposed to the Oslo accords, began ruling Gaza after winning elections.
Israel has carried out more than a dozen military offensives on Gaza since their takeover and imposed a land, air and sea blockade in a move to protect its citizens from Hamas rocket fire and border incursions.
The UN, which runs a large operation to protect the refugees in Gaza, considers the territory to remain under Israeli military occupation because of the 16-year blockade. More than 80 per cent of the 2.2 million residents in Gaza depend on humanitarian aid to meet basic needs.
A 1974 UN resolution recognised the right of Palestinians to self-determination.
The Times
