A/HRC/9/26 page 5 D. Applicable law 10. In construing its mandate and the facts presented to it, the mission applied an international law framework, in particular international human rights law and international humanitarian law (Council resolution S-3/1, paras. 4 and 5). 11. Gaza is under the effective control of Israel and is thus occupied by it.1 This control, including in the period since the disengagement of Israel in September 2005, has been described in a number of reports to the Council and to the General Assembly (see A/HRC/4/17). The mission was able to witness this control first-hand, not least in its own protracted difficulties in gaining access to the territory without Israeli cooperation. The mission also witnessed the constant surveillance of Gaza by Israeli forces, most strikingly from unmanned aerial drones. It was also able to see how Israel effectively controls basic aspects of the daily life of Gazans, notably through the fuel blockade in force when the mission visited the territory. The situation was described to the mission by one resident in the following terms: “Israel decides what Gazans eat for dinner, whether they walk or drive, whether their children go to school or not.” 12. As the occupying force, Israel has obligations towards the population in Gaza under both international human rights law and international humanitarian law, both of which are relevant to the shelling of Beit Hanoun. Israel is a party to six of the nine core international human rights instruments.2 The long-standing position of United Nations human rights treaty bodies is that, as a State party to international human rights instruments, Israel continues to bear responsibility for implementing its human rights conventional obligations in the occupied Palestinian territory, to the extent that it is in effective control.3 This position is supported by the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice which, in its advisory opinions on the South West Africa case and the legal consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory case, held that an occupying power remains responsible for fulfilling its obligations under the relevant human rights conventions in occupied territory. 1 Democratic Republic of Congo v. Uganda, International Court of Justice, 2005, paras. 173-174. 2 Israel ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination on 3 January 1979; and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child on 3 October 1991. 3 See for example the concluding comments on Israel in the report of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (A/60/38), para. 243.