The Blockade

Israel intercepted a group of ships headed to Gaza with relief aid and lives were lost. That is enough to set everyone with an interest either direct or peripheral to their blogs, twitter accounts and streets. I'm a lagging behind but will give my opinion on the issue. The first thing i wanted to know was whether the blockade is legal. The United Nations Charter section section 7 deals with acts of aggression and threats to peace. Article 42 of that section recognizes that blockades may be imposed on offending members. When I read this section the implication was that any action must be approved by the security council, the Israeli action is not sanctioned by the U.N.. I found story in Reuters that answered the question a little better. I will not assume that this piece is part of an agenda aimed at legitimizing Israel's action in the Eastern Mediterranean, but i will leave open the possibility that all the questions needed to be asked in order to assess the legality may not have been posed. The questions that were asked an answered in this article do address the legality of the blockade in terms of international law and treaty (excluding the U.N.).
It is reasonable that when a state of war exists between two nations that blockades maybe imposed. It may be undeclared but a state of war does exist between Israel and Hamas(Gaza). Hamas attacks Israel with rockets on a routine basis. These attacks damage property and rarely take lives, but they are attacks by one state on another, however ineffectual. This provides Israel with the choice of whether to act and how. Mostly Israel will reply in kind. Last year they replied with disproportional force resulting in 1300 Palestinian deaths. Hamas takes this chance every time they fire a home made rocket. Hamas can goad Israel into action but once initiated it's out of their hands.
In an effort to control the influx of material used to make weapons Israel initiated a full blockade of Gaza. It is not quite complete. The border with Egypt is more or less porous depending on the mood of the Egyptians. The upshot is that everything that goes into Gaza must go through Israel. This puts Israel in complete control of Gaza, and responsible for the conditions found therein. Yes Hamas is the architect of this situation, but like the rockets, after helping to create this circumstance they immediately lost control of process. Since Israel is in control of Gaza they are responsible for the conditions found inside Gaza. This may be unfair to Israel, since their stated aim was to reduce to zero the rocket attacks, not the occupation of Gaza. Unfair or not Israel is running the show deny it all you want.
Having a legal right to engaged in the blockade does not confer on you the right to do as you please, proportionality matters to the legitimacy of any given action. Though they live under almost complete control of a foreign power in most ways that matter, Gaza isn't starving, even if life is very hard.