A/HRC/4/17 page 12 aggravated the situation. Economic and social rights have also suffered from the humanitarian crisis resulting from the occupation. It is estimated that 56 per cent of the population of the West Bank live below the official poverty line and are dependent on food aid. A. The Wall 24. The Wall that Israel is presently building largely in Palestinian territory is clearly illegal. The International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion of 9 July 2004, asserted that it is contrary to international law and that Israel is under obligation to discontinue construction of the Wall and to dismantle those sections that have already been built forthwith. The Israeli High Court of Justice, in a judgement delivered in September 2005 in Mara’abe v. the Prime Minister of Israel case (HCJ 7957/04), dismissed the advisory opinion, arguing that the International Court of Justice had failed to have regard to the security considerations that had prompted the construction of the Wall. The basis of this judgement has now been undermined by the admission of the Government that the Wall is designed to serve a political purpose and not an exclusively security purpose. The admission that the Wall has in part been built to include West Bank settlements within the Wall and under Israel’s direct protection, has led the High Court to rebuke the Government for misleading it in the Mara’abe hearing and other challenges to the legality of the Wall.2 That the purpose of the Wall is to acquire land surrounding West Bank settlements and to include settlements within Israel can no longer be seriously challenged. The fact that 76 per cent of the West Bank settler population is enclosed within the Wall bears this out. 25. The Wall is planned to extend for 703 km. When it is finished, an estimated 60,500 West Bank Palestinians living in 42 villages and towns will reside in the closed zone between the Wall and the Green Line. More than 500,000 Palestinians living within 1 km of the Wall live on the eastern side but need to cross it to get to their farms and jobs and to maintain family connections. Eighty per cent of the Wall is built within the Palestinian territory itself and in order to incorporate the Ariel settlement block, it extends some 22 km into the West Bank. The closed zone includes many of the West Bank’s most valuable water resources. 26. The Wall has serious humanitarian consequences for Palestinians living within the closed zone, i.e. the area between the Green Line and the Wall. They are cut off from places of employment, schools, universities and specialized medical care, and community life is seriously fragmented. Moreover they do not have 24-hour access to emergency health services. Palestinians who live on the eastern side of the Wall but whose land lies in the closed zone face serious economic hardship as a result of the fact that they are not able to reach their land to harvest crops or to graze their animals without permits. Permits are not easily granted. A host of obstacles are placed in the way of obtaining a permit. Bureaucratic procedures for obtaining permits are humiliating and obstructive. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has estimated that 60 per cent of the farming families with land to the west of the Wall could no longer access their land.3 To aggravate matters the opening and 2 Head of the Azzun Municipal Council, Abed Alatif Hassin and others v. State of Israel and the Military Commander of the West Bank (HCJ 2733/05). 3 OCHA Special Focus, November 2006.