40 The Independent Commission for Human Rights - ICHR routes. While an increasing number of road accidents and resulting casualties have been reported, Israeli control has created distortions in road planning and growing environment pollution.49 Israeli arbitrary actions and restrictions on the right to freedom of movement have obstructed truck loads, which ensure that goods are transported from Israeli ports to their destinations in the Palestinian territory. Having shifted from back-to-back to door-to-door method, Palestinian trucks are prevented from reaching Israeli ports to load imported Palestinian goods. Replaced by Israeli trailers, some 920 Palestinian trucks have been banned from accessing Israeli ports. As a result, annual losses of Palestinian truck owners are estimated at US$ 190 million in daily wages of truck drivers and tax payments to the Public Treasury. This Israeli policy also has negative bearings on both Palestinian merchants and citizens50. Israel’s control over the greatest portion of the Palestinian territory has impeded the effective planning of road networks and short routes between Palestinian cities. Palestinians are incapable of conducting field surveys. The Separation Wall has caused congestions in, and severed contiguity between, some Palestinian villages. In these, traffic jams have been in place because Palestinian vehicles are denied access to some external routes connecting northern and southern West Bank governorates. Combined, these Israeli policies have maimed road planning. Of note, Palestinians lose some 60 million hours due to Israeli measures and restrictions on the transportation sector, costing US$ 270 million. Eighty (80) million more litres of fuel come at a cost of over US$ 135 million. According a study by the Ministry of Transportation (MoT), carbon dioxide emissions have increased by an annual average of over 196,000 tonnes. 1.1.12 Labour Approximately 200,000 Palestinian workers are employed in the Israeli labour market. Of these, 90,000 are formally employed, including 75 percent in the more dangerous construction sector, 15 percent in the agriculture sector, and 10 percent in the industry service sectors. In view of limited work permits, others access Israeli workplaces by smuggling through openings into the Separation Wall or hold other permits, such as commercial permits. A number of Palestinian workers are employed in Israeli settlements, constructed illegally on the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967. The occupying Power is fully responsible for failing to regulating their employment and depriving them of the most basic social rights guaranteed under law.51 The Israeli occupying authorities continued to fail to apply occupational health and safety requirements to Palestinian workers in workplaces inside the Green Line. Compared to 23 in 2020, this brought the number of fatalities among these workers to 37. The majority of casualties were reported to have taken place in the construction sector, including as a result of falling from high altitude. Israeli employers do not provide occupational protective equipment. More than 378 work injuries were also reported. The occupying Power also continued to violate Palestinian workers’ social rights. Since 1970, Israel has withheld these workers’ savings benefits, estimated at billions of shekels. Israeli employers continued to manipulate salary slips of Palestinian workers in the formal employment sector inside the Green Line. Employers do not write down actual, but record fewer, monthly working days, depriving a worker and his family of health insurance services. While their due amounts are reduced, workers’ social rights are abused. Workers are entitled to a low proportion of savings when they are 49 Letter from Ministry of Transportation (MoT), January 2022. 51 Interview with Mr. Abdul Karim Mardawi, Director of External Employment Department, Ministry of Labour (MoL), January 2022. 50 Letter from MoT, January 2022. The Situation of Human Rights in Palestine