Interesting comment from Jonathan Edelstein at 'Just World News' (Helena Cobban's blog).
I did not understand until yesterday how much Egypt has cooperated with Israel to starve the people of Gaza. Jonathan is an original thinker and always sees trends and possibilities that other analysts miss.Questioning received wisdom: I think we've been wrong all along in describing the siege of Gaza as an Israeli siege. In fact, ever since Israel left the Philadelphi route, it's been an Israeli-Egyptian siege, and Egypt has maintained its end for its own reasons. Hamas correctly perceived Egypt as the military and political weak link, and chose to break the siege at the Egyptian border. I've actually wondered why it took so long; there have been partial breaches of the wall before, and I remember thinking at the time that Hamas would gain an advantage by widening them. Maybe it wasn't yet ready, but I think it's now very clear that they and Israel were never the only players.
The paradigm shift: now that the Egyptian border is open, Gaza can no longer be regarded as Israeli-occupied territory. Some scholars such as Dugard maintain that the occupation continued after the 2005 withdrawal because Israel continued to control the access points. I've argued in the past that international law precedents, such as the ICJ's judgment in the DRC-Uganda case, don't support this interpretation and that the occupation ended once Israel gave up effective control on the ground. At this point, however, the argument is moot: as long as the Egyptian border stays open, Gaza can't seriously be regarded as occupied even under Dugard's interpretation. This would mean that the law of belligerent occupation no longer applies to Gaza, although the humanitarian law of war, including the provisions relating to siege, still do.Israel is no longer legally responsible (note: legal and moral responsibilities aren't necessarily the same) for the general welfare of Gaza, or for supplying its people with goods like electricity or fuel.