‘We did what we could’
The staggering toll of first responders killed in Gaza.
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“Gaza Journalists ‘Really Expect to Die Daily’”
“Staggering Levels of Violence Against Health Workers”
These are just two of the headlines that might as well be flashing red on human rights organizations’ websites today. More than 30,000 civilians have been killed in Gaza since the Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7, according to the United Nations. Among them are a frightening number of humanitarian aid workers, health workers and journalists.
I am highlighting these stats because these are the people who are intentionally throwing themselves into harm’s way to help people suffering, or to record the first draft of history. These are the first responders.
Medical professionals, journalists and aid workers are specifically protected as neutral parties under international law, although that hasn’t stopped combatants from specifically targeting them in recent years.
The extraordinary number of journalists killed in Israel’s bombardment is unprecedented in the Committee to Protect Journalists’ history of recording media deaths. I’m willing to bet there are also some horrific records being broken for the killing of health and aid workers too.
As Rania Khayyat, a spokeswoman for the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, told CPJ, journalists and media workers — drivers, fixers, translators — “really expect to die daily.”
“Every time you call them, they always tell us the same sentence, it may be their ‘last call,’” she said.
Still, somehow, somewhere inside themselves, each one of these people finds the superhuman strength to continue their work. It is that important.
Below are some numbers to quantify these deaths. But in order to qualify them, here is just one image that will likely stick in your mind as it has in mine.
Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila, a surgeon with Doctors Without Borders, was killed in Gaza in a November air strike. He had just written on the whiteboard in his operating room: “Whoever stands until the end will tell the story. We did what we could.”
Journalists and media workers killed as of April 4: At least 95
Number who were Palestinian: 90
Number who were Israeli: 2
Number who were Lebanese: 3
Number of reported attacks on health care workers, facilities and other medical infrastructure, as of mid-March: Almost 1,000
Number of humanitarian workers killed as of April 3: >200
Percentage of those killed who were Palestinian: 95
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thanks for this incredibly shocking statement. Coming on the heels of the 7 World Central Kitchen employees, it is sobering, Please, Press. Biden, stop sending bombs to Gaza. And the IDF better listen up, and change their ways, though I don't expect they will.