A/HRC/2/5 page 13 36. Israel has, in addition, violated the most fundamental rules of international humanitarian law, which constitute war crimes in terms of article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and article 85 of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflict (Protocol I). These include direct attacks against civilians and civilian objects and attacks which fail to distinguish between military targets and civilians or civilian objects (arts. 48, 51 (4) and 52 (1) of Protocol I); the excessive use of force arising from disproportionate attacks on civilians and civilian objects (arts. 51 (4) and 51 (5) of Protocol I); the spreading of terror among the civilian population (art. 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and art. 51 (2) of Protocol I) and the destruction of property not justified by military necessity (art. 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention). Above all, the Government of Israel has violated the prohibition on collective punishment of an occupied people contained in article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The indiscriminate and excessive use of force against civilians and civilian objects, the destruction of electricity and water supplies, the bombardment of public buildings, the restrictions on freedom of movement and the consequences that these actions have had upon public health, food, family life and the psychological well-being of the Palestinian people constitute a gross form of collective punishment. The capture of Corporal Gilad Shalit and the continued firing of Qassam rockets into Israel cannot be condoned. On the other hand, they cannot justify the drastic punishment of a whole people in the way that Israel has done. IV. THE WEST BANK 37. Many of Israel’s policies and practices in the West Bank seriously impinge upon the human rights of Palestinians. The Wall presently under construction in Palestinian territory, checkpoints and roadblocks, settlements, an arbitrary permit system, the pervasive practice of house demolitions, targeted assassinations, and arrests and imprisonment violate a wide range of civil and political rights. Economic and social rights have also suffered from the humanitarian crisis resulting from the occupation. The Wall 38. The Wall that Israel is presently building largely in Palestinian territory is clearly illegal. The International Court of Justice in its advisory opinion 4 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. On 20 July 2004 the General Assembly adopted resolution ES-10/15 by 150 votes in favour, 6 against and 10 abstentions, in which it demanded that Israel comply with its legal obligations identified in the advisory opinion. The Israeli High Court of Justice, in a judgement delivered in September 2005 in Mara’abe v. the Prime Minister of Israel (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 Israeli 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 (see Haaretz, 14 and