I'll try to keep this simple for you Sherri -- please let me know which sovereign nation's territory Israel captured when it "occupied" the territory. Until you can do that, your claim to occupation is null and void. Cite whatever you want but words have meanings and you can't escape that this word "occupied" has a particular legal use.
What are you, a John Yoo fan? You think you can re-define common GC and IHL terms? Sorry, it doesn't work that way.
The actual definition of what constitutes an
"occupation" mentions nothing about the territory being part of a sovereign nation. It's an area a State takes control of where it had no sovereign title.
Under IHL, there is occupation when a State exercises an unconsented-to effective control over a territory on which it has no sovereign title. Article 42 of The Hague Regulations of 1907 defines occupation as follows: “Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.”
Israel has no sovereign title to the areas it took in the '67 war.
The question of an advisory position by the ICJ ignores this distinction and actually asserts israeli occupation in Gaza (which Israel has withdrawn from thrice and received shelling in response, contrary to international law) and areas which, actually, were under PA control (ineffective though it is). So keep citing all those decisions about "international law."
You're missing a couple of things here as well. You do not have to have a military presence in an area to be considered "occupied". An occupation exists if a State maintains
"effective control" of that area. Israel, because of its illegal and immoral blockade of Gaza and control of all its border crossings (with the exception of Rafah), controls 80% of what goes into (and out of) Gaza.
One source of the obligations imposed on Israel toward residents of the Gaza Strip is the laws of occupation, which are incorporated in the Hague Convention (1907) and in the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949). These laws impose general responsibility on the occupying state for the safety and welfare of civilians living in the occupied territory. The laws of occupation apply if a state has "effective control" over the territory in question. The High Court has held contrary to Israel 's claim, stating that the creation and continuation of an occupation does not depend on the existence of an institution administering the lives of the local population, but only on the extent of its military control in the area. Furthermore, a certain area may be deemed occupied even if the army does not have a fixed presence throughout the whole area. Leading experts in humanitarian law maintain that effective control may also exist when the army controls key points in a particular area, reflecting its power over the entire area and preventing an alternative central government from formulating and carrying out its powers. The broad scope of Israeli control in the Gaza Strip, which exists despite the lack of a physical presence of IDF soldiers in the territory, creates a reasonable basis for the assumption that this control amounts to "effective control," such that the laws of occupation continue to apply.
Que pasa, mutha?