The Gaza Flotilla Incident and the Modern Law of Blockade

The law and operational practice of blockade were considered all but dead by many in the 1990s.1 However, in recent years, Israel has employed blockade twice: in 2006 against Hezbollah in south Lebanon and since then against Hamas in Gaza. The latter blockade, which will be the focus of this article, was instituted in January 2009 to prevent arms and other materials reaching Hamas and thereby to halt rocket attacks against Israeli territory.