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Source: http://www.unwatch.org/cms.asp?id=2832097&campaign_id=63111
Hamas Says Gaza "Not Occupied," UN Disagrees
(UN Watch) Hillel C. Neuer - Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Zahar confirmed Tuesday there is no Israeli occupation of Gaza, according to a report by the Ma'an Palestinian news agency. Four-and-a-half years after seizing power in Gaza, Hamas runs its own police, courts, jails, schools, media and social services, noted Abraham Bell and Dov Shefi, two international legal experts, in a 2010 research paper for the University of San Diego law school. Hamas operates "a functioning and fully independent local civil government, buttressed by armed forces," they concluded. Similarly, in an article published in the American University International Law Review, Elizabeth Samson concluded that under the Geneva Conventions and international judicial precedents, Gaza can no longer be considered occupied because Israel no longer exercises "effective control," the litmus test for what qualifies as occupation. Yet a Sept. 22 report in the name of the secretary-general speaks of a UN mission's visit to the "occupied Palestinian territory, specifically the Gaza Strip." The writer is executive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch.