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	Fear rises for Civilian Safety in Congo by The Congo Advocacy Coalition   February 7, 2009   A coalition of 100 humanitarian and human rights groups is calling for the joint Congolese and Rwandan military operation in the war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to prioritize the protection of civilians.   A coalition of 100 humanitarian and human rights organizations today called on John Holmes, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, to insist that protecting civilians be a top priority of the joint Congolese and Rwandan military operation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Holmes is due to arrive in Goma, the North Kivu capital, on February 7, 2009.   In a public letter to Holmes, the Congo Advocacy Coalition expressed alarm that the joint military operation has to date contributed to the flight of thousands of people from their homes in anticipation of violence, adding to the 1.2 million already displaced in earlier waves of fighting. The coalition further raised concerns about reprisal killings and the use of civilians as human shields by the rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), as well as reports of rape and looting by all sides.   "Congolese civilians are always targeted when there are military operations and their fears of being killed, raped, or looted are very real," said Juliette Prodhan of Oxfam. "The Congolese and Rwandan forces and UN peacekeepers should do all that they can to ensure that civilians are protected during the joint operations and are not once again the targets."   On January 20, 2009, the Congolese and Rwandan governments began a joint military operation against the FDLR, an armed group based in eastern Congo, some of whose leaders are wanted on charges of genocide. While there have only been a few skirmishes so far, there is widespread anticipation that the fighting could intensify and spread in the coming days and weeks.   The coalition warned against a repeat of the unimaginable brutality suffered by Congolese civilians in Haut-Uele territory in northeastern Congo following the launch of a joint Ugandan and Congolese military operation to disarm the Lord"s Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan rebel group based in Congo. More than 700 people were massacred by the rebels in less than one month. Minimal protection measures had been put in place to protect those at risk and to halt the killings.   The UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, MONUC, has a strong mandate to protect civilians but has been left out of military planning in both joint operations, in the Kivus and Haut-Uele. It is also still awaiting 3,000 reinforcements authorized almost three months ago. In its letter, the Congo Advocacy Coalition urged Holmes to insist that the peacekeeping mission be given a central role in civilian protection and relief in planning all military operations and that the mission has the resources it needs, as mandated by the UN Security Council, in order to effectively protect civilians and ensure humanitarian access.   The coalition also called on Holmes to urge parties to resume the political process needed to address the underlying issues driving the Congo conflict, such as exploitation of mineral wealth, lack of justice, and representation of minorities.   "All of the armed groups need to disarm," said Kubuya Muhangi, the president of CRONGD-North Kivu. "People in eastern Congo desperately want to go back to their homes and to be able to stay there without fear of having to run again."
	Remaining humane in the midst of conflict by Human Rights Watch / CS Monitor Middle East - Gaza   Aug 2009   Gaza/Israel: Hamas Rocket Attacks on Civilians Unlawful. (Human Rights Watch)   Hamas should repudiate unlawful rocket attacks against Israeli population centers and hold those responsible for them to account, Human Rights Watch said in a new report.   Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups have over several years launched thousands of rockets at Israeli cities and towns, including hundreds during Israel''s three-week military offensive in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009. A UN fact-finding investigation into serious violations of the laws of war by both sides in the Gaza conflict, led by Judge Richard Goldstone, is due to report back to the UN Human Rights Council in September.   The report, "Rockets from Gaza: Harm to Civilians from Palestinian Armed Groups'' Rocket Attacks," documents attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups since November 2008 that killed three Israeli civilians and seriously injured dozens of others, damaged property and forced residents to leave their homes. The rockets unlawfully struck populated areas up to 40 kilometers inside Israel, placing roughly 800,000 Israeli civilians at risk. Rockets that fell short of their intended targets in Israel killed two girls and wounded others in Gaza during this period. Palestinian armed groups that launched rockets from densely populated areas also unlawfully put Gaza civilians at risk of Israeli counterstrikes.   "Hamas rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians are unlawful and unjustifiable, and amount to war crimes," said Iain Levine, program director at Human Rights Watch. "As the governing authority in Gaza, Hamas should publicly renounce rocket attacks on Israeli civilian centers and punish those responsible, including members of its own armed wing."   "Rockets from Gaza" focuses on events after November 4, 2008, when Palestinian armed groups resumed rocket fire after an Israeli military incursion into Gaza. Based on interviews with witnesses to rocket attacks and launches, field investigations of strike sites in Israel and Gaza, and media and other reports, the report details the cases of Israeli and Palestinian civilians killed or wounded by rocket attacks in December 2008 and January 2009. While Human Rights Watch found no clear practice by Palestinian armed groups to deliberately use civilians to shield rocket launches from counterattack, it found they frequently violated the separate duty under the laws of war to take all feasible precautions to avoid endangering civilians when they launched rockets from densely populated areas.   "Hamas forces violated the laws of war both by firing rockets deliberately or indiscriminately at Israeli cities and by launching them from populated areas and endangering Gazan civilians," said Levine.   Hamas has significantly limited rocket attacks in recent months, but has not renounced attacks that deliberately or indiscriminately target civilians - serious violations of the laws of war - or brought to justice those responsible for initiating such attacks, or for endangering Palestinian civilians by launching rockets from densely populated areas in Gaza..   * For more details on the report visit the link below.   Jan 2009   Israel"s "victories" in Gaza come at a steep price, by Sara Roy. (CS Monitor)   I hear the voices of my friends in Gaza as clearly as if we were still on the phone; their agony echoes inside me. They weep and moan over the death of their children, some, little girls like mine, taken, their bodies burned and destroyed so senselessly.   One Palestinian friend asked me, "Why did Israel attack when the children were leaving school and the women were in the markets?" There are reports that some parents cannot find their dead children and are desperately roaming overflowing hospitals.   As Jews celebrated the last night of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights commemorating our resurgence as a people, I asked myself: How am I to celebrate my Jewishness while Palestinians are being killed?   The religious scholar Marc Ellis challenges us further by asking whether the Jewish covenant with God is present or absent in the face of Jewish actions against the Palestinians? Is the Jewish ethical tradition still available to us? Is the promise of holiness – so central to our existence – now beyond our ability to reclaim?   The lucky ones in Gaza are locked in their homes living lives that have long been suspended – hungry, thirsty, and without light but their children are alive.   Since November, the violence has escalated with Israel launching attacks on Gaza and Hamas responding by sending hundreds of rockets into Israel to kill Israeli civilians. It is reported that Israel"s strategy is to hit Hamas military targets, but explain that difference to my Palestinian friends who must bury their children.   On Nov. 5, Israel sealed all crossing points into Gaza, vastly reducing and at times denying food supplies, medicines, fuel, cooking gas, and parts for water and sanitation systems. A colleague of mine in Jerusalem said, "this siege is in a league of its own. The Israelis have not done something like this before."   During November, an average of 4.6 trucks of food per day entered Gaza from Israel compared with an average of 123 trucks per day in October. Spare parts for the repair and maintenance of water-related equipment have been denied entry for over a year. The World Health Organization just reported that half of Gaza"s ambulances are now out of order.   According to the Associated Press, the three-day death toll rose to at least 370 by Tuesday morning, with some 1,400 wounded. The UN said at least 62 of the dead were civilians. A Palestinian health official said that at least 22 children under age 16 were killed and more than 235 children have been wounded.   In nearly 25 years of involvement with Gaza and Palestinians, I have not had to confront the horrific image of burned children – until today.   Yet for Palestinians it is more than an image, it is a reality, and because of that I fear something profound has changed that will not easily be undone. For how, in the context of Gaza today, does one speak of reconciliation as a path to liberation, of sympathy as a source of understanding? Where does one find or even begin to create a common field of human undertaking (to borrow from the late, acclaimed Palestinian scholar, Edward Said) so essential to coexistence?   It is one thing to take an individual"s land, his home, his livelihood, to denigrate his claims, or ignore his emotions. It is another to destroy his child. What happens to a society where renewal is denied and all possibility has ended?   And what will happen to Jews as a people whether we live in Israel or not? Why have we been unable to accept the fundamental humanity of Palestinians and include them within our moral boundaries? Rather, we reject any human connection with the people we are oppressing. Ultimately, our goal is to tribalize pain, narrowing the scope of human suffering to ourselves alone.   Our rejection of "the other" will undo us. We must incorporate Palestinians and other Arab peoples into the Jewish understanding of history, because they are a part of that history. We must question our own narrative and the one we have given others, rather than continue to cherish beliefs and sentiments that betray the Jewish ethical tradition.   Jewish intellectuals oppose racism, repression, and injustice almost everywhere in the world and yet it is still unacceptable – indeed, for some, it"s an act of heresy – to oppose it when Israel is the oppressor. This double standard must end.   Israel"s victories are pyrrhic and reveal the limits of Israeli power and our own limitations as a people: our inability to live a life without barriers. Are these the boundaries of our rebirth after the Holocaust?   As Jews in a post-Holocaust world empowered by a Jewish state, how do we as a people emerge from atrocity and abjection, empowered and also humane? How do we move beyond fear to envision something different, even if uncertain? The answers will determine who we are and what, in the end, we become.   * Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, and the author, most recently, of "Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict." Visit the related web page
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