Is the Unimaginable What Awaits Us?

Nearly two years have passed since Israel’s assault on Gaza and other occupied Palestinian territories began. The dimensions of ethnic cleansing, mass killing, forced displacement, and the deliberate starvation and dehydration of civilians continue unabated, with no end in sight. One of the starkest arenas of these crimes is the systematic assassination of medical staff, health-care workers, and humanitarian responders—fields that should be protected even in the harshest conditions but have themselves become battlegrounds of slaughter.

Since the start of the war (from October 2023), 1,438 attacks on health-care facilities have been reported, resulting in 907 people killed and 1,490 injured. More than 120 ambulances have also been destroyed.

Journalists and photojournalists are among the other direct victims of this catastrophe. Reports indicate that since October 7, 2023, more than 240 journalists have been killed in the Gaza war, though the precise number varies by reporting organization. Press-freedom groups have called this one of the deadliest conflicts in history for media workers.

If we review the numbers of journalists killed in the major wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we can better grasp how merciless and horrific the scale of these crimes by Israeli forces has become.

World War I (1914–1918)

This four-year war claimed an estimated 9–10 million military lives and more than 7 million civilian lives, for a total death toll of roughly 15–20 million. Yet only 2–5 journalists were killed. One reason for this low figure is that war reporting was still emerging; most correspondents were embedded with armies and were less present on the front lines.

World War II (1939–1945)

This six-year conflict is the bloodiest in human history. Approximately 21–25 million soldiers and 50–55 million civilians were killed, with total deaths reaching 70–85 million—nearly 3% of the world’s population at the time. The Holocaust alone took the lives of more than 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Roma, Slavs, communists, and others persecuted by the Nazis.
Despite extensive news coverage, about 60 journalists are reported to have been killed, mostly on the European and Asian fronts or in bombings.

The Vietnam War (1955–1975)

A 20-year war with heavy human losses:

• About 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong combatants
  
• Roughly 250,000–300,000 South Vietnamese soldiers
  
• 58,200 U.S. service members
  
• 5,000–6,000 allied troops
  
• 2–2.5 million Vietnamese civilians
  

In total, direct deaths exceeded 3–4.3 million (including victims in Cambodia and Laos). This was one of the most lethal wars for journalists in the twentieth century. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), about 63 reporters and photojournalists were killed, largely because of the extensive presence of independent and international correspondents in the field.

The Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988)

One of the longest wars of the twentieth century, lasting about eight years. Estimated casualties:

• Iran: 200,000–250,000
  
• Iraq: 250,000–300,000
  
• Total: roughly 450,000–600,000
  
• Wounded: more than 1–1.5 million
  

Because of strict censorship, foreign media presence was very limited. Reports indicate that about 8–12 journalists (Iranian and foreign) were killed, often in city bombings or while reporting from the front.

The U.S. War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)

America’s longest war, spanning more than two decades. Estimates include:

• 2,450 U.S. service members
  
• 3,800 U.S. contractors
  
• More than 66,000 Afghan security forces
  
• About 51,000 Taliban fighters
  
• 47,000 Afghan civilians
  

Brown University estimates direct deaths at more than 240,000; counting indirect deaths from disease, famine, and infrastructure collapse, some estimates rise to 400,000–500,000. CPJ reports that more than 50 journalists were killed, most of them Afghans who died in bombings, assassinations, or airstrikes.

The U.S. War in Iraq (2003–2011)

One of the bloodiest recent wars, with:

• 4,500 U.S. service members
  
• 3,600 contractors
  
• About 30,000 Iraqi security personnel
  
• More than 35,000 insurgents
  
• 180,000–200,000 civilians
  

Total deaths are estimated at 270,000–300,000; including indirect deaths, some sources put the number as high as 500,000. This war was extraordinarily deadly for journalists. According to CPJ’s comprehensive 2013 analysis, at least 150 journalists and 54 media workers were killed. Some were directly targeted by U.S. fire, including the April 8, 2003 strike on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad that killed Taras Protsyuk (Reuters) and José Couso (Spain’s Telecinco). British ITN journalist Terry Lloyd was also killed that year by U.S. forces; a UK court later deemed the killing “unlawful.” More recent tallies place total media-sector deaths around 280 (including translators and drivers), most of them Iraqis.

The Catastrophe of Journalist Killings in Gaza

This historical overview shows that although many journalists have perished in major wars of the last century, what is unfolding in Gaza today is unprecedented in intensity, speed, and scope. In no previous conflict did more than 240 journalists come under lethal fire in less than two years. This fact lays bare the depth of the catastrophe and the brutality of Israel’s crimes.

My purpose in recalling the wars and atrocities of the past hundred years is not merely to recount the blood-soaked history of modern conflict. It is to remind us of the bitter truth that, over this period, more than a hundred million people have been consumed by war—and countless journalists and photographers, whose sole duty was to record the truth, were driven to slaughter. Above all, it is to force us to look squarely at Gaza’s present calamity: a catastrophe that, in less than two years, has been wrought by Israeli perpetrators and has stripped the mask from the face of war more starkly than ever.

In this war—whose depth and breadth are rare even by the standards of the twentieth century—Palestinians in Gaza and other occupied areas have been subjected to unrelenting violence. An Associated Press report indicates that more than 63,000 people have been killed so far; most of them women who nurtured life and children who had not yet had the chance to experience the world. Gaza’s Health Ministry has reported the staggering figure that more than 44% of the victims are children under 18; among them, 33% were children under 15. These numbers shake every human conscience: tens of thousands of children cut down at the threshold of life. Alongside the dead, more than 156,000 have been wounded—bodies shattered, lives disabled, families whose futures have collapsed under the rubble of injury and pain. And confidential Israeli military documents have exposed a brutal truth: 83% of those killed are civilians. This is no longer a war between armies; it is the annihilation of a people.

Nor does the tragedy end there. Alongside the bloodshed, another crime has been systematically repeated: silencing the voice of truth. Journalists—whose only weapons were a camera and a pen—have been among the first targets. In its latest report, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) states that at least 233 journalists and media workers have been killed; of these, 219 were Palestinian. In other words, nearly every journalist who stood in Gaza to record reality has paid for it with their life. These are not sterile numbers. They are the stories of fathers who never returned home, mothers whose voices are forever stilled, and young people whose dreams were to narrate freedom and who now lie in unmarked graves.

Thus this war, which is an unmistakable genocide against Palestinian civilians, is also, in the most literal sense, a genocide of the press—an intentional effort to blind the world’s eyes and choke off the voice of truth.

These crimes are vast in scope: mass murder, genocide, forced displacement, and ethnic cleansing. In effect, every offense listed in international conventions as a crime against humanity is being carried out by Israel brazenly and criminally, leaving none undone.

Elsewhere in the world, the occurrence of even one or two of these acts would suffice for condemnation. In Palestine, Israel commits them all at once and in their worst forms against innocent, defenseless people—from starvation and deprivation of water and medicine to the widespread bombing and destruction of residential areas.

Targeting Journalists and the Media

One of the most shocking aspects is the targeted attacks on journalists and photographers. Israel is openly attempting to silence the voice of truth:

• by bombing and assassinating reporters,
  
• by spreading terror among media workers, and
  
• by imposing heavy financial burdens on news organizations responsible for the lives of their staff.
  

When a journalist is killed, a news organization must compensate the family. This pushes many outlets to refrain from sending reporters into war zones.

A crucial point is that nearly all of the slain journalists and photographers were Palestinian or Arab. Though they worked for international media, they were not themselves European or Western. This is itself a sign of deep discrimination and dehumanization: Israel takes the lives of local journalists with impunity to ensure the region’s cry remains unheard.

The Consequences of Targeting Journalists—and the Continuation of Crimes

These targeted attacks carry a clear message: to instill fear and to deter media organizations from dispatching reporters to conflict zones, lest they face severe legal and financial liabilities if their journalists are killed.

And yet the crimes continue before the eyes of the world. It is as if an “unwritten agreement” has taken shape—one that allows this process to go on, to serve as a “bloody lesson” for resistance movements: whoever resists should expect such a fate.

The Message of Resistance

Even so, the experience of resistance in Gaza shows that with very limited means it is possible to stand up to a massive war machine. If Hamas, with fewer than twenty or thirty thousand fighters, has managed to resist Israel—with all of America’s and Europe’s backing—for two full years, that alone is proof that despair is misplaced.

The future of humanity will be decided not only by the deadly weapons of fascist powers, but by nations’ determination to live with dignity, honor, conscience, and human worth.

Lessons of History

We have seen this truth before:

• in Vietnam, where a people stood against America’s war machine;
  
• in Cuba, which endured despite long sieges;
  
• in Iran, which resisted invasion during the eight-year war with Iraq;
  
• and today, before our eyes, in Gaza and Yemen.
  

Glimmers of Hope

These experiences show that we must not surrender. We must not assume that the infernal firepower arrayed against us makes everything hopeless. Even in the face of the unholy alliance of criminals linking the United States, Europe, and Israel—and even amid the deadly silence of Arab governments that are part of the same crime—there remains a crack of light.

These states could have stemmed the carnage by turning off the oil taps and refusing to funnel limitless money to bullies like Trump and his allies. They did not—and thus became accomplices.

And yet the torch of hope still burns. Despite mortal pressure, the people of Gaza hold that torch high. It is this vision of a dignified life that will shape humanity’s future.

The story of Gaza will not end in Gaza. The total occupation of Gaza will not be an end but the beginning of a new phase. The same scenes of death and ruin we witness there today will spread elsewhere in the region tomorrow. This fire will not go out. Sooner or later, we too may be counted among its next victims.

What Awaits Us?

Is the unimaginable what awaits us?
Could the people of Gaza, three years ago, have imagined that only a short time later tens of thousands would be massacred, their homes reduced to ashes, and their children driven to the brink of death by hunger and homelessness? Could they have foreseen that, for a morsel of bread or a sip of water, traps of death would be laid—and that every day, only to feed their children, they would be drawn to their own deaths?

Could Europeans, in less than a decade—even just a few years before World War II—have imagined that their supposedly civilized continent would so quickly become the slaughterhouse of tens of millions?

Could Europe’s Jews, a few years before fascism’s rise in Germany, have imagined that soon millions of them would be turned to ash in crematoria?

Could Afghans ever have believed that U.S. and European forces, in the name of fighting terror and the Taliban, would invade their country, massacre at least a million people, and, after twenty years, sit down to negotiate with the Taliban, hand power back to them, and ultimately flee the country—abandoning even their local partners and allies to the Taliban’s mercy?

Could Libyans have imagined that after NATO’s aggression, in a country once among Africa’s most advanced, slave markets would re-emerge and women and girls would be sold?

Neither the people of Gaza foresaw such a future, nor the Jews on the threshold of the crematoria, nor Afghans under U.S. and European occupation, nor Libyans before their state was shattered. None knew what horrific fate lay in wait.

Today, we too do not know what awaits us, or what tomorrow will bring. If we do not rise now, our future will be no better than that of Gaza’s people. Death and ruin lie in ambush for us all. Never assume you sit in safety, or that living in Europe or America guarantees immunity. Europeans in the 1930s never imagined their cities would be engulfed in flames, that millions would perish in a few short years, and that they would lose everything for a loaf of bread—just as the people of Gaza never dreamed of the crimes unleashed on them over these past two years.

A storm of death and destruction has been set in motion. Fascism is re-emerging and can visit these calamities upon us—wherever we are. Tomorrow will be far too late to awaken if today we sit in the waiting room and merely watch.

When the German chancellor, flanked by European leaders, thanks the Israeli army—which commits crimes on their behalf—and none of those leaders voice disgust but instead offer support, we should grasp the depth of the disaster burrowed beneath the politics of Europe and the United States. It is a disaster that, at some unknown hour, can rear its head and create a new Holocaust—one in which the principal victims will be Muslims and migrants living in those countries, even as their homelands are once again drenched in blood, perhaps in the name of fighting terrorism or even under the banner of combating antisemitism.

I fear that what we cannot even imagine is lying in wait for us.

Reza Fani Yazdi
September 2, 2025