In the spring of 2025 the cartoonist Joe Sacco, author of Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza, and Chris Hedges, the former Middle East Bureau Chief for The New York Times, traveled to Cairo where they interviewed 29 Palestinian families who had recently left Gaza. In Requiem for Gaza, they use the experience and stories of these families to detail the crucible of the genocide, the loss of homes and communities, the appalling death toll among friends and loved ones, the constant displacement, the terror of indiscriminate killing, the hunger and deprivation, the obliteration of all that was known and familiar, and the struggle to cope with the callous indifference of a world that continues to supply Israel with weapons despite its wholesale destruction of Gaza and mass slaughter. Requiem for Gaza, like their New York Times best seller Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, combines comics and single images drawn by Sacco within the narrative written by Hedges. Hedges’ vivid prose and Sacco’s visceral images complement each other and together paint a portrait of dignity and suffering under genocide. The collective power of the individual stories that chronicle the first day of the genocide, the forced evacuation of homes, the targeted assassinations, the false hopes engendered by ceasefires, the dislocation and alienation of exile, the brutal killing and hasty burial of family members, and the humiliation of living under tarps without clean food and water bring every aspect of the genocide to life. Set against this horror are stories of self-sacrifice and compassion that show how Palestinians not only clung to their humanity, but morally triumphed over their killers.
