Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges and multiple Eisner- and Harvey-awarded cartoonist Joe Sacco reunite (after Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt) to create Requiem for Gaza, another wrenching--albeit remarkable--work: "The goal in Gaza is... to wipe out the past and replace it with amnesia, to mask Israeli crimes, including genocide." Sacco's haunting, signature black-and-white panels capture scenes where words are not enough. "This denial of historical truth and historical identity permits Israelis to wallow in eternal victimhood," Hedges writes; such denial is backed by the Donald Trump administration "in lockstep with Israel," funding "at least $21.7 billion in military aid since October 7, 2023." Meanwhile, "eighty-two percent of Israeli Jews support the ethnic cleansing of the entire population of Gaza and fifty-six percent support doing the same to Palestinian citizens of Israel." With facts and figures, supported by more than 20 pages of documentation, the pair bear witness to "erasure... butchery, carnage and loss, as well as resilience, courage and self-sacrifice."
Hedges and Sacco, working with Palestinian American translator Ruba Abu Zannad Jafar, gathered 525 pages of interview transcripts from Gazans who lost (and continue to lose) family members; a fellow journalist counts 150 dead among her extended family. Homes, careers, futures continue to be destroyed. Six intense chapters of narrative and illustration recount that day in October 2023, exodus for those fleeing Gaza, targeted assassinations of medical staff and journalists, the ceasefire that wasn't, the uncertainty of exile, and acts of resistance. The title alone signals that this is challenging, at times unbearable, reading, but to deny these brutally enlightening pages is to condone a "campaign of erasure." --Terry Hong