A/HRC/4/57 page 3 age groups 21-25 (17 cases), 26-30 (16 cases), 31-35 (15 cases), and 36-40 (9 cases). The fear of such hardships led a significant number of Palestinian pregnant women to choose to give birth at home (with an increase by 8.2 per cent of home deliveries). 7. At the time of preparation of the present report, no reply has been received from the Permanent Mission of Israel. 8. OHCHR also addressed letters dated 9 January 2007 to the following United Nations entities and specialized agencies represented in the OPT: Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Process (UNSCO), United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), World Food Programme (WFP) and World Health Organization (WHO). 9. Replies were received in late January and early February 2007 from UNSCO, UNRWA transmitting statistics from WHO and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), as well as from UNICEF, UNIFEM and UNFPA. UNSCO indicated that it had no specific contribution to make on the subject. UNRWA mentioned that it did not keep statistics on the issue of Palestinian pregnant women at Israeli checkpoints and that the field staff consulted had no direct knowledge of any cases in 2005 or 2006. The two tables of figures transmitted by WHO are based on the statistics provided by the Information Health Centre of the Palestinian Ministry of Health (see paragraph 4 above). The information given by PRCS noted 10 cases of deliveries in ambulances between January and May 2005 at the El-Toufah checkpoint in the Gaza Strip, which was later dismantled by Israeli forces when they withdrew from Gaza. All the deliveries occurred within delays ranging from one and a half hours to two hours. 10. UNICEF indicated that it had no additional comments or observations, except that it remained determined to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms of the Palestinian women and their children, in particular unobstructed and timely access to health facilities. 11. UNIFEM noted that other United Nations agencies working in the OPT had already reported comprehensively on the issue of Palestinian pregnant women giving birth at Israeli checkpoints, and focused its contribution on the question of the treatment of pregnant Palestinian female prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centres. 12. UNFPA expressed deep concern about recent reports of delays at Israeli checkpoints and women in labour, and reiterated the universal right of pregnant women to have access to health care, including delivery, in complex humanitarian situations such as in the OPT. Delays of pregnant women at checkpoints and other blockades had resulted in forced roadside births, and even in the death of some women (68 women, according to Palestinian Ministry of Health statistical reports have in the last six years given birth at a checkpoint, with 34 miscarriages) and