Via a Tweet [by the IDF’s own Peter Lerner, @ptrlrnr] on Twitter, our attention was drawn to an Opinion piece published in the Los Angeles Times here in which the author, Amos N. Guiora, identified as a professor of law at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law, professor, wrote: “Since Hamas gained control in Gaza, Israel has carefully controlled the borders, and it established the sea blockade three miles off Gaza’s shoreline“.
Well, this is a broad brushstroke.
But, before unpacking the various components of the phrase, the last part of the phrase attacks immediate attention: “Since Hamas gained control in Gaza, Israel has … established the sea blockade three miles off Gaza’s shoreline“.
This is puzzling, and warrants close examination.
On 3 January 2009, we published a post on the formal announcement of the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza’s maritime space, here.
After many inquiries, I was informed — some 15 months later — that it was published, supposedly on 6 January 2009, which is three days after it was announced on the website of the Israeli Ministry of Transport [controlled, of course, by the Israeli government]. This does raise some questions — especially as this notice was not published on the main global reference site, which is that of the UK Hydrology Office.
This formal Israeli Notice to Mariners (No. 1 of 2009), entitled “Blockade of Gaza Strip“, is published here.
Since then, however, there has been something new.
We first drew attention to this in a review of the situation we published on 14 July 2010, entitled “Investigation: Gaza’s maritime space”, which is posted here.
This new element is apparently unchanged.
The UK Hydrology Office is the main reference for global maritime claims, and the most recent “National Claims to Maritime Jurisdiction” posted on its website still indicates, as we’ve reported previously, as it has for at least the past year-and-a-half, that Israel claims a 12-Nautical Mile territorial sea — with a footnote: and this Footnote 17 (Israel) states that Israel’s claims are “reduced to 3M off Gaza”.
It appears that Israel is now claiming (and has been since at least the end of 2010), as part of its own territorial sea, some 3 nautical miles off Gaza’s coast. This is the area to which Palestinian fishing has largely been restricted.
The Israeli Navy would, it seems obvious, not put seas that it claims as its own under embargo.
So, if the article Tweeted by the IDF’s Peter Lerner is correct (and if we understand it correctly), then the Israeli-proclaimed maritime embargo starts at 3 miles off the coast and extends to the 20 miles designated in maps attached to the Oslo Accords and signed by the parties and witnessed by the U.S. and Russia.
This would be consistent with information about where other ships have been intercepted by the Israeli navy in the past year or so.
We have previously asked the Israeli authorities about their limits of their naval embargo, and related questions, without response.
Continue reading What is Israel doing, exactly, off Gaza's coast?
