Are you reading out of a script, you looser? I just said HAMAS HAS ALREADY AGREED TO A CEASE FIRE. The same day Israel invaded Rafah and murdered over 40 people there.
Itamar Ben Gvir and other high level politicians are openly asking for blood.
Gaza was never a state. There was never an institution in Gaza that controlled Gaza’s borders, its airspace, or its sea access. There was never an institution that could issue passports with which Gazans could travel abroad without interference. There was never an institution that could collect customs revenue. There was never an institution that controlled water, electricity, medicine, or food imports.
Most critically for any useful definition of the state, there was never an institution that exercised a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence, because the Israeli state could and did export violence and kill Gazans with impunity.
Rafah Crossing has been in control of the Gaza government from 2008 to 2017. At that time it decided to cede control officially to the Ramallah government (but still maintain practical control).
The other side is under Egyptian control, naturally, because it it is a border crossing.
None of that changes the fact that both Gaza and the West Banks are by no mean "States" but occupied territories, both under international law and by using the concepts coherently.
Your claim that Gaza is a State, and that Hamas control over it is the problem has been disproved.
You are still on denial over Hamas having accepted a ceasefire proposal.
I'm not asking you what your opinion on the West Bank is, I'm telling you that both Gaza and the West Bank are occupied territories, not States or "de facto State".
I'm also telling you Hamas agreed to a ceasefire proposal mediated by Egypt and Qatar, and that blood thirsty Israel's response was to start an assault in Rafah.
Having control of one side of a border crossing does not mean that some Gazan institution controlled Gaza’s borders, much less that a state existed in Gaza. Gazans could not leave Gaza and, as Israel has demonstrated throughout its genocide in Gaza, external actors could trivially pre-empt that control by ie bombing aid crossing the border at Rafah.
Apples to oranges. The Israeli state can and does routinely project force into Gaza with impunity. There is no interstate conflict, as you might find between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Israeli warplanes control Gaza’s airspace. Israeli naval ships and sea mines control Gaza’s airspace. Israeli troops enter Gaza at will and kill tens of thousands of Gazans as they please.
“To exit their territory, Gazans had to dig tunnels underground like burrowing animals” is not the evidence of statehood you freakishly imagine it to be.
@tzafrir The Gaza Strip fails to fill out the requirements for a "de facto state" under any definition - from having no monopoly on violence (the simplest definition possible) to having no access to customs, the airspace or even things like electricity, phone service and water.
I had clearly defined borders, sure. But so does a ghetto.
Guys, tzafrir is a habitual troll that likes to provoke… I blocked him few months back being tired of him regurgitating at me his posts from the fascist Hebrew Wikipedia where Palestinians don’t exist and every dead settler is a martyr (look up Bente’s Wikipedia editing Zionist bootcamp for info on how it started). You’re wasting your time … he’s not here to learn he’s here boost signal of his Neo Zionist propaganda.
Apples to oranges. The Israeli state can and does routinely project force into Gaza with impunity. There is no interstate conflict, as you might find between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Israeli warplanes control Gaza’s airspace. Israeli naval ships and sea mines control Gaza’s coast. Israeli troops enter Gaza at will and kill tens of thousands of Gazans as they please.
> “So if you wanted to get in and out of the Strip, you had to get the approval of the Hamas government.”
Unless you’re the IDF.
Gaza most closely resembles the Bantustans established under Apartheid South Africa to create the pretense that Black South Africans were really citizens of another country and not citizens of South Africa denied rights on the basis of their racial identity.
Before Oct 2023, Israeli troops did not enter Gaza (except as part of the two previous wars, after long escalations, and even then: not that much) - 2008 and 2014. Only one of those was in Netanyahu's time.
No monopoly over violence? If you said anything bad against Hamas, you would be taken to an interrogation and likely your knees would not survive the ordeal. There's a reason there's not much criticism on the Hamas from within the Strip.
Gazans could leave Gaza if the Egyptians allowed it (or if they paid someone on the Egyptian side. In addition to paying someone on the Gazan side, because they are very honest).
Generally for one to cross from Gaza to Israel (through Erez) one would need clearance from Hamas, Ramallah government and Israel. And that one would be automatically suspected by both Israel and Hamas as spying for the other side (which was occasionally the case).
This is a border between two bitter enemies. Not fun to cross. Kind of Check Point Charlie.
“Before the current invasion, Israeli troops only repeatedly invaded Gaza before” is not the credible evidence of Gazan statehood you think it is.
This also does not count the number of times the IDF has conducted air and artillery strikes into Gaza, or simply shot Gazans inside Gaza from Israeli territory.
The fact that the Egyptian military dictatorship colludes with the Israeli state to maintain the imprisonment of Gazans is hardly evidence that Gaza was somehow ever a state. “Egypt does it too!” lmao
Gazans are not free to leave Gaza at all to go anywhere which is not a condition for any state anywhere in the world, but it is a condition for all prisoners everywhere.