A/HRC/25/67 also about how life is made untenable, inducing more and more Palestinians to abandon their land and leave. By way of illustration, for years, the village of Nabi Samuel reportedly attempted to improve the village school. The village’s location in the seam zone complicates access to outside education. The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator stated on her 2011 visit to the village: “I am horrified by the way the Barrier affects Palestinians. It divides communities and inhibits the provision of services. I visited a one-room school with no windows and very few facilities, which can’t be improved because the planning rules don’t allow it. This is unacceptable.”9 In September 2013, the village succeeded in installing a container on the school ground to serve as an additional classroom. However, the school is now in danger of losing one of its two rooms for lack of a building permit.10 These acutely burdensome living conditions lead to the displacement of long-term residents. In 2012, the Village Council noted that over the past decade at least 10 families have left the village, which counts some 260 residents.11 18. Another case in point is the approximately 25 houses making up the village of Al-Numan. It is also encircled by the wall, with its only access through an Israeli checkpoint, and restricted from unlicensed building activity, effectively preventing families and the population of the village from growing, as housing needs cannot be met.12 Consequently, the villagers have seen their own number fall while observing the neighbouring illegal Har Homa settlement’s steady growth in occupied territory. In 2006 Al-Haq published a case study on the indirect forcible transfer taking place in Al-Numan.13 These are but two concrete examples of the obstacles communities face daily. In 2012, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that approximately 7,500 Palestinians still lived in the seam zone,14 down from an estimated 10,000 people in 2003.15 Upon completion of the wall, an estimated 25,000 Palestinians would be located in the seam zone, a figure which does not include the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem.16 19. Regular demonstrations against the wall and its associated regime staged in affected villages are often violently suppressed.17 A website for the village of Bil’in, a farming community, describes its struggle thus: “[Bil’in] is fighting to safeguard its land, its olive trees, its resources … its liberty… Supported by Israeli and international activists, Bil’in residents peacefully demonstrate every Friday in front of the ‘work-site of shame’. And every Friday the Israeli army responds with both physical and psychological violence.”18 20. The impact of the wall on people’s lives is reflected in the progress report of the Board of the United Nations Register of Damage Caused by the Construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (see A/ES-10/599). As at June 2013, 36,803 claim forms 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 OCHA, Barrier Update, p. 14. Documentation collected by OHCHR. See www.unrwa.org/galleries/photos/nabi-samuel-“we-are-living-inside-prison. See www.alhaq.org/advocacy/topics/wall-and-jerusalem/594-visiting-a-ghost-town-drawingattention-to-the-plight-of-al-numan-village. Available from www.alhaq.org/10yrs/images/stories/PDF_Files/2%20Al-Numan%20Village%20%20a%20case%20study%20of%20indirect%20forcible%20transfer%20-%20November%202006.pdf. OCHA-oPt, “The humanitarian impact of the barrier” (July 2012), p. 1 (www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_barrier_factsheet_july_2012_english.pdf). The Special Rapporteur believes that both the re-routings of sections of the wall and Palestinians leaving due to the wall and its associated regime have contributed to the decrease in numbers. OCHA-oPt, Barrier Update, p. 11. See Palestinian Grassroots Anti-apartheid Wall Campaign, www.stopthewall.org/2013/04/07/furthersuppression-demonstrations-occupation; B’Tselem, www.btselem.org/demonstrations; and the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, Findings of the South Africa Session (2011). See www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task= blogcategory&id=15&Itemid=34. 7