A/HRC/10/35 page 4 15. Barta’ Al Sharqiya is a totally enclosed enclave in the Jenin District in the West Bank, where entry and exit to other districts in the West Bank are accessible through two gates.4 Accessing secondary health-care services, especially after the gates are closed (from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.) is a complicated process. This can pose a life-threatening risk for patients who need urgent lifesaving treatment. Special coordination with the Israeli soldiers at the gates is required for ambulances and patients entering or exiting Barta’ Al Sharqiya. This often results in delays in transporting patients and potentially leads to health complications. Moreover, no drugs or vaccinations are allowed into the village without prior coordination with the Israeli soldiers. UNRWA used to provide mobile clinic services but has been facing problems in entering the village due to Israeli search procedures at the entrance gate. 16. According to UNFPA and UNIFEM, an estimated 2,500 births per year face difficulties en route to a delivery facility. Many Palestinian women have developed various higher-risk coping mechanisms in reaction to movement restrictions and for fear of being unable to cross Israeli checkpoints in a timely manner to reach health-care services. Consequently, birth location patterns have been affected drastically. The trend is reported to occur even if it results in a lower standard of health care (e.g., births attended at home or in doctors’ clinics). The risks presented by checkpoints, road closures and other obstacles are reported to have led to an increase of 8.2 per cent in home deliveries, further compounding the risk to women’s health and to their babies. The Palestinian Ministry of Health has assessed the proportion of deliveries outside health facilities as high as 13.2 per cent. 17. To conclude, the critical impact of the closure regime (e.g., the Wall, checkpoints, road closures, earth mounds, etc.) on Palestinian women’s access to adequate prenatal, natal and post-natal medical care remains a matter of serious concern, impairing the fulfilment of the right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.5 It should also be 4 5 Barta’ and Shaked. This right is protected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 25, as well as in a number of international conventions to which Israel is party, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, art. 12; the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, art. 5 (e) (iv); the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, art. 12; and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 24. The 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 OPT, to the extent that it continues to exercise jurisdiction in those territories (see A/HRC/8/17). The International Court of Justice adopted a similar position in its 2004 Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, paras. 102-113. The ICJ also noted that Israel’s obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights include “an obligation not to raise any obstacle to the exercise of such rights in those fields where competence has been transferred to Palestinian authorities” (para. 112).