Since 2007, Israel — with Egypt’s cooperation — has enforced a total land, air, and sea blockade of Gaza. Israel describes this as a security measure against Hamas. International law describes the result differently: a humanitarian catastrophe imposed on 2.3 million civilians, most of whom were not born when the blockade began.

Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch describe the blockade as a form of collective punishment, which is explicitly illegal under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Collective punishment is not a matter of interpretation — it means punishing an entire population for acts attributed to a smaller group, which is exactly what 17 years of blockade has done.

Israel states it follows international law and targets only militant infrastructure, attributing civilian casualties to Hamas operating within populated areas. Independent investigations by human rights bodies have repeatedly reached different conclusions.

Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth — roughly 2.3 million people in approximately 365 square kilometers. International humanitarian law requires that parties to a conflict take all feasible precautions to avoid and minimize civilian harm. The use of heavy artillery, large air-dropped munitions, and tank fire in an area this dense is a primary reason cited by the UN and multiple human rights organizations for the extraordinarily high civilian casualty rate, regardless of the stated target.