Palestinian children watch the funeral of a man killed by the Israeli army from their home in the Gaza Strip. (Wissam Nassar, Maan Images)

Raouf Ziara's love life is in Israel's hands.

When Ziara, a 36-year-old officer in the Palestinian security forces, crossed from Gaza to Egypt in late March to visit his Egyptian wife, he had spent more than a month repeatedly trying to get through a border station that Israel only rarely allows to open.

Now in Cairo, Ziara doesn't know when he'll be able to return. But he knows he'll be doing it alone since Israel has frozen immigration to Gaza, which is why his wife is stuck in Egypt and can't join him.

Despite its withdrawal from Gaza in September 2005, Israel still exerts considerable control over the lives of the 1.4 million Palestinians there by controlling access.

The movement of crops crucial to farmers' livelihoods, the decision on when residents of the coastal strip can leave and when they can come back, permission for a foreign-born spouse to move to Gaza — it's all still up to Israel.

Yet Israel says it no longer occupies Gaza because it pulled out its soldiers and settlers. Under international law, Israel argues, it has no obligations to Gaza's residents but on its own initiative will try to keep supplies flowing to the crowded, poverty-stricken territory to avert a humanitarian crisis.

"We are no longer an occupying power," said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev. "The legal responsibilities defined by being an occupying power no longer apply."

For Gaza's residents, a brief period of relatively free movement followed Israel's withdrawal.

But despite those gains, Palestinian militants inside Gaza continued to fire rockets at towns inside Israel, and Israel tightened the borders again. It clamped down further when militants linked to the Islamic movement Hamas tunneled into Israel in June 2006 and abducted a soldier.

Israel says it's now turning the crossings with Gaza into international border points, formalizing its farewell from the territory it captured in the 1967 Six Day War.

It has built a high-tech passenger terminal at the main crossing at Erez — with signs declaring it a "border control point." From behind bulletproof glass, inspectors issue orders over loudspeakers to travelers making their way through a maze of metal detectors, remote-controlled gates and passport control.

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But the United Nations says Gaza remains occupied, arguing that Israel retains control over the crossings and that Gaza and the West Bank constitute one unit. Since the West Bank is still occupied, the U.N. says, so is the rest.

Gisha, an Israeli human rights group, accuses the international community of failing to hold Israel to its responsibilities as an occupier, such as ensuring passage of people and goods from the narrow strip where more than half the people live in poverty and unemployment is 36 percent.

"Israel's failure to uphold those obligations has contributed to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza that is unprecedented in 40 years of occupation," said Gisha director, Sari Bashi.

Despite an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, brokered by the U.S. in November 2005, movement through the crossing points is far below capacity.

Younis Abu Shabana, who grows chili peppers and tomatoes for export to Europe, said he was able to ship just 250 tons of his 4,000 tons of produce last season. He said he threw away 750 tons that had already been packed, and let the rest rot in the fields.

Israel says it restricts Palestinian movement mainly because of the rocket attacks and the kidnapping of the soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit. After the abduction, Israeli troops unleashed a weeks-long military offensive and bombed Gaza's power plant, severely disrupting the electricity supply.

Israel determines who can visit or settle in Gaza through its control over the population registry. Only those on the list get Israeli-issued ID cards crucial for travel in and out of the strip, including through the Gaza-Egypt border that in theory is under Palestinian control.

At Israel's insistence, the 2005 agreement stipulated that only legal Gaza residents can cross that border, along with a limited number of foreigners.

Israel has frozen immigration since the Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000, meaning that foreign-born relatives or spouses such as Ziara's Egyptian wife cannot move to the territory. More than 50,000 Palestinians who came on visitors' permits in the 1990s, following interim peace agreements with Israel, don't have residency rights. If they leave, they won't be allowed back.

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