Marwan Yaghi, a Palestinian Researcher from Gaza has successfully defended his Master’s thesis at the University of Essex (UK), which questions whether a state that is occupied by another state for a prolonged duration can still invoke the right of self-defense to justify military operations aimed at recovering its land. Yaghi investigated the unlawful occupation and if it can be regarded as a continuing armed attack permitting the use of self-defense at any given point in time — possibly years after the occupation commenced.

Yaghi also explained that some scholars argue that a state under occupation can lose its right to self-defense of its own territory after a period of time, while the opposition sees that the state under occupation does not lose its inherent right to self-defense to recover its occupied territory merely due to the passage of an indeterminate period of time.

However, Yaghi argued that based on the “reasonable and accurate interpretation of the law of self-defense,” the occupation resulting from the use of force qualifies as a “continuing armed attack” under Article 51 on the UN Charter. Thus it fulfills the condition of immediacy and allows the occupied state to use force as long as the occupation continues.