A/HRC/4/17 page 21 some payments, but well short of their full salaries, and pensioners and social hardship cases have also received an allowance. However, owing to the withholding of tax revenues due to the PA by Israel, most government employees remain unpaid and are experiencing difficulty in paying their basic expenses, such as rent and electricity. 54. In effect, the Palestinian people have been subjected to economic sanctions - the first time an occupied people have been so treated. This is difficult to understand. Israel is in violation of major Security Council and General Assembly resolutions dealing with unlawful territorial change and the violation of human rights and has failed to implement the 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, yet it escapes the imposition of sanctions. Instead, the Palestinian people, rather than the Palestinian Authority, have been subjected to possibly the most rigorous form of international sanctions imposed in modern times. IX. CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS 55. Civil society - Palestinian, Israeli and international - plays a major role in the protection of the human rights of the Palestinian people by means of public education, litigation, humanitarian aid and protective action. Non-governmental organizations collect, analyse and publicize information about human rights abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Where possible they petition the Israeli Supreme Court for redress. All the decisions of the Israeli Supreme Court, some helpful to the cause of human rights and some positively unhelpful, referred to in this report have been initiated by NGOs, mainly from Israel itself. NGOs working in the fields of health, education and welfare perform invaluable services. On occasion members of civil society intervene to protect Palestinians against the Israeli Defense Forces or settlers or to assist in the assertion of rights. The Israeli women’s group, Machsom Watch, monitors the behaviour of members of the IDF at checkpoints and in so doing softens the conduct of some soldiers. Israeli peace activists have assisted in the harvesting of olives and protected Palestinian farmers against settler violence. Israeli and Palestinian activists regularly demonstrate against the construction of the Wall at places like in the village of Bil’in. Civil society must therefore be credited with having reduced the suffering of the Palestinian people. X. INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY 56. On a recent visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, the High Commissioner for Human Rights stressed the need for the accountability of Israelis and Palestinians for the violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law. Palestinians who launch Qassam rockets into Israel, killing and injuring civilians and damaging property, should be held individually accountable - that is prosecuted. But so should Israelis who have committed violations of international humanitarian law on a much greater scale. Despite the fact that Israel - unlike Palestine - has a sophisticated and advanced criminal justice system, prosecutions are very rare. Civil claims were impossible before the Israeli Supreme Court on 12 December 2006 overturned a law that prevented Palestinians from seeking compensation from Israel for damages from Israeli army activities in the OPT. Palestinians harmed in “non-belligerent” army operations in the OPT may now sue for redress. This ruling, however, does not alter the prohibition on compensation to Palestinians harmed in combat operations or to Palestinians belonging to “terrorist organizations” - such as Hamas.