Gaza/Israel: Hamas Rocket Attacks on Civilians Unlawful

Launches from Populated Areas Endanger Israelis and Palestinians

(Jerusalem) - 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 released today. 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 31-page 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. Hamas's armed wing claimed responsibility for the three Israeli civilian deaths documented in the report. During the Israeli offensive in December and January, the armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed to have fired 820 rockets at Israel.

The locally made Qassam rockets and Soviet-designed Grad rockets used by Hamas and other armed groups cannot be aimed with any reliability. Under the laws of war, such weapons are indiscriminate when used against targets in densely populated areas. The absence of Israeli military forces in the areas struck by the rockets, as well as statements from the leaders of the Palestinian armed groups, indicate that the armed groups deliberately intended to strike Israeli civilians and civilian structures. For example, Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas's Qassam Brigades, said in a video released on January 5, 2009 that "continuing the incursion will only make us increase our rocket range [...]. We will double the number of Israelis under fire."

Under the laws of war, individuals who willfully authorize or carry out deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians are committing war crimes.

An Israeli early warning siren system, which gives civilians roughly 10 to 45 seconds to find cover in prepared shelters, depending on their distance from the launch site in Gaza, has undoubtedly limited the number of civilian casualties in Israel. However, the repeated attacks have, over months and even years, taken a psychological toll on the population in areas close to Gaza. The laws of war prohibit attacks the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population. Because of the rocket attacks, thousands of people have moved away from frequently targeted areas such as Sderot municipality.

Palestinian armed groups have argued that the rocket attacks are appropriate reprisals for Israeli military operations and the ongoing economic blockade of Gaza, and are a lawful response to Israel's control over Gaza. Human Rights Watch has also documented numerous laws of war violations by Israeli forces in Gaza, but violations by one party to a conflict never justify violations by the other. Attacks targeting civilians are never permitted under the laws of war, which require armed forces to target only military objectives, and to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians from harm, regardless of the reasons for resorting to armed conflict.

Similarly, although Israeli military operations caused far greater total harm to civilian lives - killing several hundred civilians with air strikes, artillery, tank shelling, and other attacks - and property than operations by Palestinian armed groups, violations of the laws of war are not determined by the number of civilian casualties, but by whether each side is refraining from conducting deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians and is taking all feasible precautions to minimize civilian loss.

"Human Rights Watch is committed to documenting the worst violations of the laws of war committed by all sides in armed conflicts throughout the world," Levine said. "We published this report because civilians must never be the object of attack, regardless of the relative strength of the attacker."

Using unsophisticated weapons does not justify failure to respect the laws of war, just as an adversary's use of sophisticated weapons does not provide a pass to its opponents to ignore those laws, Human Rights Watch said. Such disparities exist in many wars, and if they provided a justification for ignoring the laws of war the civilian toll in armed conflicts would rise dramatically. The loss of civilian life from armed conflict can be minimized only if each party recognizes its legal obligations to abide by the laws of war, regardless of the weaponry at its disposal.

"Rockets from Gaza" is the fifth in a series of reports Human Rights Watch has issued on the Israeli offensive launched on December 27, 2008. Two reports are forthcoming.

HEALTH CONDITIONS WORSENING IN GAZA AS BORDERS REMAIN CLOSED – UN AGENCY

HEALTH CONDITIONS WORSENING IN GAZA AS BORDERS REMAIN CLOSED – UN AGENCY
New York, May 22 2009 6:00PM
The deteriorating health situation in Gaza has been intensified by Israel's blockade of crossings into the area, the United Nations agency tasked with assisting Palestinian refugees warned today.

Even before Israel's military offensive targeting Hamas militants on the tiny strip of land earlier this year, which killed over 1,400 people and injured 5,000 others, the border closures had a grave impact on the health of Gazans and the ability of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (<"http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/index.html">UNRWA) to provide health services.

According to the agency's latest health report, some 4,000 medical items per day on average could cross into Gaza before the conflict, whereas only 40 items are currently allowed to be imported daily.

UNRWA also reported that restrictions on building supplies have resulted in damaged health care centres being left in a state of disrepair and a scarcity of paper has led to difficulties in keeping medical records.

The new report also voiced deep concern over the lack of adequate food to children, and said that on top of widespread unemployment, no petrol or diesel has been delivered to Gaza and only very limited amounts of cooking gas has made it into the Strip since 2 November, causing anaemia in 30 per cent of children below 36 months of age and 50 per cent of pregnant women.

Guido Sabatinelli, UNRWA Director of Health, <"http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B9C2E/(httpNewsByYear_en)/446CA4419978392CC12575BE00318C05?OpenDocument">told reporters in Geneva today that the agency forecasted a 25 per cent shortfall in its biennium budget for 2009-2010. Since needs were expanding, the agency said it would be obliged to suspend some of its services next year, including hospital closures.

Mr. Sabatinelli said that the UNRWA health budget was $80 million to provide for 4 million persons, or $20 per person per year, which is well below the recommendation by the World Health Organization (<"http://www.who.int/en/">WHO) of $60 per person as an absolute minimum.
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UN ENVIRONMENT TEAM COMPLETES STUDY OF GAZA CONFLICT DAMAGES

UN ENVIRONMENT TEAM COMPLETES STUDY OF GAZA CONFLICT DAMAGES
New York, May 21 2009 12:00PM
Experts from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have completed field work on a study of the environmental impact of the recent heavy fighting on Gaza, the agency announced today.

The team of eight UNEP experts spent 10 days in Gaza studying waste and waste water systems, the coastal and marine environment, and solid and hazardous waste management, including asbestos, and will make recommendations for rehabilitation this in the coming months.

In the coming months, it will make recommendations which "will inform local planning and assist the planned reconstruction by the international community," according to UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

The experts inspected 32 sites to assess environmental impacts and collect samples for laboratory analysis and also collected data for an economic evaluation of the cost of rehabilitation and restoration of the environmental damage in Gaza.

Sites visited included residential areas, schools, industrial areas, sewage facilities, landfills and the coastline, where detailed sampling of water and sediments, bio-indicators, asbestos and waste water was conducted.

Samples collected on the ground will be sent to an independent international laboratory and analysed in the coming weeks.

The three-week Israeli offensive which began on 27 December, with the stated aim of ending rocket attacks by Hamas and other groups, killed at least 1,300 Palestinians and wounded some 5,300. The heavy bombardment and fighting also reduced buildings and other infrastructure to rubble.

Shortly after the conflict ended, UNEP sent a senior staff member to Gaza in late January as part of the UN Early Recovery Needs Assessment mission, which found that the fighting had created large quantities of building demolition waste, which is often contaminated with hazardous materials such as asbestos.

Even prior to this most recent conflict, Gaza did not have an appropriate system for waste segregation and disposal. Consequently, the creation of such large quantities of solid waste, within such a short time, has overloaded the already inadequate infrastructure.

During the May field mission, UNEP also ran two training workshops on handling asbestos and other hazardous substances in rubble management, and on health and safety practices for demolition and disposal of damaged buildings.

The team members have extensive experience in assessing the environmental impact of conflict in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Sudan and the Middle East, and in making recommendations for action, according to the agency. They also have expertise in water and waste water management, asbestos and hazardous wastes monitoring, and coastal and marine issues, it added.

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THREE MONTHS AFTER CONFLICT, UN OFFICIAL WARNS OF DIRE HUMANITARIAN SITUATION

Although the devastating Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip against Hamas came to an end three months ago, life for Gazans remains extremely difficult, the United Nations humanitarian chief has stressed.

The three-week offensive Israel launched late last December, with the stated aim of ending rocket attacks by Hamas and other groups, killed at least 1,300 Palestinians and injured some 5,000 others. The heavy bombardment and fighting also reduced homes, schools, hospitals and marketplaces to rubble.

"For the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip to improve, lifesaving assistance must be decoupled from the security and political agendas," said John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

"If the Israeli-Palestinian peace that has been sought for over 60 years, and more recently inter-Palestinian reconciliation, remain preconditions for improv
ing living conditions, the Gaza Strip risks being dependent on handouts for years to come," he warned, appealing for the reopening of all land borders to allow urgently-needed humanitarian and reconstruction supplies into Gaza.

Last month in Egypt, over $5 billion was pledged for reconstruction efforts in Gaza, "possibly the most significant show of donor support for Gaza in the history of the occupied Palestinian territory," Mr. Holmes, who also serves as UN Relief Coordinator, said.

However, "for once, money is not the main problem," he noted, adding that the funds are not "hitting [the] mark" with three-quarters of Gazans requiring some form of aid.

The sweeping Israeli ban on the import of construction materials, spare parts for public infrastructure and the industrial sector in Gaza, along with restrictions on the entry of cash, has prevented work to start on almost all of the planned early recovery projects, according to last month's by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on the situation in Gaza.

In addition, a ban on exports, apart from a few truckloads of flowers, has exacerbated the situation by crushing Gaza's job-creation industries, said Mr. Holmes. "The ruin of hundreds of thousands of lives and livelihoods appears to be seen by Israel as the collective price that Gaza's civilians must pay for the acts of a few among them."

Over 20 per cent of the population able and willing to work is unemployed and nearly half live below the poverty line, according to the latest survey of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics cited in the OCHA report.

It also indicated that the continued blockade on the livelihoods of Gazans -- especially farmers, herders and fishermen -- has been exacerbated by Israeli restrictions on access to
farmland along the border and to fishing areas beyond three nautical miles from the shore.

This grim humanitarian situation was compounded for chronically ill patients as access to specialized medical treatment outside Gaza was dramatically tightened after Hamas took over the Referral Abroad Department (RAD) in late March. Subsequently, the Palestinian Authority-controlled Ministry of Health has not approved or funded applications for treatment outside of Gaza, and without its consent neither Israel nor Egypt will allow patients to exit the Strip.

"While Israel has primary responsibility for this terrible crisis of human dignity in Gaza," Mr. Holmes stressed that "Hamas must also should its part of the blame because of the indiscriminate and pointless rocket attacks it committed from Gaza for so long," as well as for its three-year silence over the fate of Israeli captive Gilad Shalit.

The Israeli offensive may have ended in late January with unilateral ceasefires by both sides, but violent clashes -- some resulting in deaths -- occurring almost daily, according to OCH
A..

"In Gaza today, humanity has taken a back seat to politics, and a measly trickle of items has become the most the world can offer civilians trapped by a political stalemate not of their making," the Under-Secretary-General said.

"Protection, food, water, healthcare and shelter are basic human needs, not bargaining chips," he underscored. "It is high time that fact is recognized by all the parties responsible for the immense suffering in Gaza today."

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UN VOICES CONCERN OVER RIFT PREVENTING PATIENTS LEAVING GAZA FOR TREATMENT

United Nations agencies operating in the Gaza Strip have expressed serious concern over the halting of patients leaving the area for specialised hospital treatment after Hamas took control of the health department tasked with making referrals abroad.

On 22 March, the Hamas de facto authorities in Gaza took over the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health Referral Abroad Department, which oversees the process by which local people receive approval to travel for medical care.

Since then the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health in the West Bank town of Ramallah has not approved or funded applications for treatment outside of Gaza, affecting many patients with serious and complicated conditions.

In addition, Israel and Egypt will not allow these patients to exit Gaza unless they have been approved by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.

According to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), around 900 patients a month were being referred outside of Gaza for treatment at hospitals in Israel, East Jerusalem, Egypt, and Jordan in the first half of 2008.

"We are very worried about the situation," said Tony Laurance, acting Head of WHO in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"We have already seen referrals affected, and patients will die if they do not receive the treatment they require," he added.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, together with WHO, has intervened to seek the urgent reversal of last week's decision, but have not received a positive response.

"It is not acceptable for essential patient care to be stopped because of an internal political dispute or unilateral steps," said Maxwell Gaylard, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator.

"We call for a rapid solution to be found among the parties concerned to enable referrals to resume and patients' rights to be protected and for Hamas to reverse their decision so that a way forward can be found," he added.
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EU: Demand Accountability for Gaza Conflict Laws of War Violations

The European Union should press for a comprehensive and impartial international inquiry into allegations of serious violations of international law committed by Israeli and Palestinian forces in Gaza and southern Israel, Human Rights Watch said today. Failure to do so would suggest an indefensible double standard in the application of international justice.

In a letter sent today to EU foreign ministers attending the General Affairs and External Relations Council meeting in Brussels, Human Rights Watch said that "failure to push for accountability in Gaza would undermine the credibility of both the EU as a global voice for international justice and international justice institutions themselves."

"The European Union should publicly call for an international investigation into violations of international law during the Gaza conflict," said Lotte Leicht, European Union director of Human Rights Watch. "An EU failure to insist on accountability not only for pariahs like Sudan but also for friendly states such as Israel will badly undercut the EU's credibility on behalf of international justice."

Both Israel and Hamas have a poor record of conducting impartial investigations and of holding members of their own forces accountable for war crimes, the letter said. Similarly, current and planned international investigations are inadequate to address the apparent violations that occurred on both sides during the conflict.

The letter presents Human Rights Watch's basic findings on laws-of-war violations committed by both sides. Regarding Israel, Human Rights Watch's primary concerns are: the ongoing closure of Gaza, amounting to collective punishment; the use of high-explosive heavy artillery as well as of air-burst white phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas; the shooting of unarmed civilians holding white flags; the targeting of civilian structures; inadequate warnings to civilians of impending attack; and the wanton destruction of civilian property.

Regarding Hamas, Human Rights Watch's key concerns are: the firing of rockets deliberately and indiscriminately into civilian areas of Israel; the shooting of rockets and the conduct of military operations from within populated areas in Gaza; and the beatings and killings of Palestinian political opponents and critics in Gaza.

GAZA: UN AGENCIES METE OUT CASH FOR SHELTER

GAZA: UN AGENCIES METE OUT CASH FOR SHELTER
New York, Feb 24 2009 5:00PM

Gazans whose homes were damaged or destroyed in the Israeli offensive that ended last month have, to date, received more than $7 million in cash from United Nations agencies in a distribution that began last week.

Some 3,800 families have benefited so far from the distribution by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), according to the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

To meet long-term shelter needs of the displaced, UNDP plans for 10,000 families to get between $1,000 and $5,000 in cash aid, according to family size, current socio-economic status and level of home damage, the agency said last week.

It adds that major repair of damaged houses cannot be done until construction materials are permitted into the Gaza Strip, where, it estimates, over 14,000 homes were totally or partially damaged in three-weeks of fighting.

Israeli authorities have not allowed such materials to enter since last November, though the Security Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other UN top officials have repeatedly called on the country to fully open crossings into Gaza for humanitarian goods and reconstruction materials.

Israel, which launched its operation with the stated aim of ending rocket attacks by Hamas and other groups, says it has restricted access to the Strip both in response to attacks and for other security reasons.
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