Israel The intervention of Gaza-Bound Floralla, which carry human aid and hundreds of activists question what a nation can legally do to implement the blockade in international water.
Dozens of boats left close Gaza On Wednesday afternoon, the Israeli Navy warned him to turn back.
“You are entering an active warzone. If you continue and try to break the naval blockade, we will stop your vessel,” we will stop your vessel, “a member of the Israeli Navy told the workers. The Israeli military personnel then gave a storm to the ships and seized activists including Gita Thunberg, grandson of Nelson Mandela and several European MPs.
Israeli’s action condemned world leaders and human rights groups, saying that Israel violated the international maritime law.
A human mission
Activists say their non -violent, civil mission is valid. Although they only help in a symbolic amount, including the child’s formula, food, and medical supply, their goal, they say, to establish a human corridor to facilitate the flow of assistance in the famine-affected gaza.
Israeli and European government officials offered an option to transfer their assistance to Floralla Palestine The region, which the activists, dismissed all those who entered Gaza, citing Israel’s tight control.
Defending his mission, Flotila activist and spokesperson Thiago Arevila cited Justice Ruling to an provisional International Court of Justice, who ordered Israel to “take immediate and effective measures and immediately required to address the adverse conditions of life by Palestinians in Gaza Strip to enable the provision of immediate basic services and humanitarian assistance.”
“You are not allowed to stop us by international law. So we do not comply with your request,” they told the Navy through radio some time before some 70 nautical miles (130 km) started from the banks of Israel and Gaza.
Only one boat has crossed the 12-nipple-mile line (22 km line), marking the regional water from Gaza.
International water interception
The United Nations Conference on sea law determines that the region of a nation does not move beyond 12 knots (19 km) from its shores. It states that officials can control 24 knots (45 km) from the land to prevent violations of customs, immigration, fiscal or sanitary laws.
Robbie Sabel, an international law expert and former legal advisor to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said states that states generally do not have the right to seize ships in international water, although there are exceptions during armed conflict.
Even before the latest war, Israel was in an armed conflict with Hamas, said, Sabel said, allowed it to stop ships, suspected that it violates Gaza’s long -term blockade. Rights groups have long criticized the blockade as an illegal punishment of Palestinians.
A controversial maritime blockade
Yuval Shani, expert of International Law at Hebrew University JerusalemSaid that as long as Israeli’s blockade is “military justified” to keep out the arms and intend to break it, the Israeli can stop the vessel after a pre -warning.
The debate on the validity of Israeli blockade remains a point of dispute.
Adalala, a legal rights group in Israel, representing activists, said in a statement that “a violation of international law, a violation of international law, violates international law.”
Omer Shatz, an Israeli International Law Specialist, who teaches at the University of Science PO in Paris and co-inspire the previous Floral case before the Supreme Court of Israel, told the Associated Press that even though the disputed siege of Gaza was considered valid, “International law for Gaza paves the human road to the high sea,” he said.
“If the basic needs of the population are not provided by the power occupying, it has the right to provide humanitarian aid under certain conditions,” Shatz said. Israel has the right to board and find ships to verify cargo, as it does with the aid trucks crossing in Gaza by the land.
Implementing international maritime law
This is not the first time Israel stopped and confiscated human verses bound to Gaza. Dozens of boats have tried to reach the Palestinian region in the last two decades, but no one has reached it since 2008.
In 2010, an Israeli commando raided on Mavi Maramara Floralla in violence. Eight Turkish workers and one Turkish-American were killed.
A United Nations report admitted that “efforts to dissolve a duly imposed naval blockade put the vessel and those at risk, while the member states urged the member states to be cautious in using the force against civil ships. This called human missions to assist through regular channels and said that a country’s naval blockade “should follow its obligations regarding the provision of humanitarian aid.”
Implementing international maritime law is a challenge worldwide. Generally, only states can only take other states to court for violation of the United Nations Conference for sea laws. But there are other legal structures and mechanisms that individuals can use to seek justice, with their state flags party. For example, Israel forcibly removed people from foreign-flagged ships in international water and could be considered a crime to take them to Israel, said Shatz.
The office of Spain’s state prosecutors on Thursday told the Associated Press that it would collect information on the floral interception as part of its ongoing attempt to collect evidence of possible human rights violations by Israel to Israel by Israel.
Meanwhile, the workers say that they will continue to try to break the Israeli blockade from the sea.
A second flotilla of ships formed by a thousand Madlane for Freedom Floral alliance and Gaza is already already after departing from Italy last week.
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Brito reported from Barcelona, Spain. Tia Goldenburg, DC, and Joseph Wilson in Washington contributed in Barcelona,