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The Danger of Attempting to Breach a Maritime Blockade

(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch - According to the Laws of War and the Laws of the Sea, any vessel that attempts to breach a legally imposed maritime blockade becomes a legitimate military target. The country that imposed the blockade is thus entitled, and possibly even required, to use all necessary force to prevent the intended breach. So when climate activist Greta Thunberg and actor Liam Cunningham decided to board the latest terrorist-propaganda mission aboard the Madleen with the stated goal of breaking the maritime blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza, they and their fellows were knowingly taking their lives in their hands, and bear the sole responsibility for any outcome. In modern warfare, maritime blockades were explicitly mentioned in the 1856 Declaration of Paris Respecting Maritime Law, with more detailed requirements set out in the 1909 London Declaration on Naval Warfare. If the party that implemented the blockade has reasonable grounds to believe that a merchant vessel intends to breach the blockade, it may act to capture the vessel or even, if the vessel refuses to heed the warning and desist from an attempt to breach the blockade, attack the vessel. To act against a vessel that has the clear intention of breaching a blockade, the party that implemented the blockade does not have to wait until the blockade is actually breached. After Israel prevented the Mavi Marmara from attempting to breach the maritime blockade of Gaza in 2010, the UN Secretary-General appointed a Panel of Inquiry to examine the events. In its report, the Panel concluded "that Israel's naval blockade was legal." "There is no right...to breach a lawful blockade as a right of protest." Thunberg, Cunningham, and their friends are nothing more than useful idiots promoting the alleged right of the terrorists to "resist" (including by massacring women, children, and the elderly), undermining Israel's right to self-defense and the right to protect its citizens against genocidal terrorists. The writer, former director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria, is director of the Palestinian Authority Accountability Initiative at the Jerusalem Center.
2025-06-05 00:00:00
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