A/HRC/10/22 page 5 International Court of Justice has concluded that the Fourth Geneva Convention is applicable in the Palestinian territories, which before the 1967 conflict lay to the east of the Green Line and which, during that conflict, were occupied by Israel. This is also the case for the Gaza Strip despite the unilateral withdrawal by Israel of its forces from the Strip in 2005, as the continuing occupation has been confirmed repeatedly since then by the General Assembly and the Security Council.3 10. Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups are bound by the obligations of common article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and by the applicable rules of customary international humanitarian law, concerning, inter alia, the conduct of hostilities and the treatment of civilians and other protected persons. In the text of the National Unity Government programme delivered by then Prime Minister Ismail Haniya before the Palestinian Legislative Council on 17 March 2007, Hamas accepted that it was bound by its commitment to respect international law and international humanitarian law. 11. The most relevant rules of customary international humanitarian law applicable to the conduct of hostilities in the present context relate to the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution.4 These obligations are cumulative; an attack must comply with all of the rules in order to be lawful. 12. First, under the principle of distinction, the parties to a conflict must, at all times, distinguish between civilians and combatants; attacks may be directed only at military objectives, defined as those objects which, by their nature, location, purpose or use, make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization in the circumstances ruling at the time offers a definite military advantage. The only circumstance in which civilians may be targeted is for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities. Thus, attacks on civilian objects are unlawful unless at the time of the attack they were used for military purposes and their destruction offered a definite military advantage. 13. Indiscriminate attacks are similarly prohibited. They are those that (a) are not directed at a specific military objective; (b) employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or (c) employ a method or means of combat the effects of which 3 See General Assembly resolutions 62/181, 63/96 and 63/98, and Security Council resolution 1860 (2009). 4 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Customary International Humanitarian Law, J.-M. Henckaerts and L. Doswald-Beck (eds.), Cambridge University Press, 2005 (ICRC study). The study was prepared at the request of States at the twenty-sixth International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in December 1995 and is based on an extensive analysis of State practice (e.g. military manuals) and documents expressing opinio iuris. Rules 6-9, 11-13, 15-24, 97.