“Where they make a desolation, they call it peace”
Tacitus, writing around the year 98, reports that as the Roman legions were extinguishing the last free holdouts in Britain, one of the native inhabitants of that land, a certain Calgacus, “superior to the others in bravery and birth,” rallied his troops against the Romans, rousing them before battle by describing the appetite the Romans had to oppress people, to occupy and rule over others everywhere, and then to misname what they did to make it sound honorable. In that speech, Calgacus says of the invaders: auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium atque ubi solitudinemfaciunt, pacem appellant. Or in English: To plunder, to butcher and rob, they give the fake name Empire, and where they make a desolation, they call it peace.
The Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in tallying deaths during this war, stated in June of 2025 that 55,000 Gazans had been killed, and further that the majority were women and children. The ministry also believes that many more lie buried beneath the rubble.
The Times of Israel reports that as of the end of June, 2025, “The Israel Defense Forces has published the names of 880 soldiers, officers and reservists — several dozen of whom are local security officers — killed during the ongoing war since October 7, including 329 of them on the border with the Gaza Strip during Hamas’s terror onslaught, and at least 436 during a ground offensive in the Hamas-run territory and amid operations on the border.” Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reported that of the 1,200 Israelis killed by Gaza forces in the October 3, 2024 assault, about 800 were civilians.
From the beginning of the war, Israel has controlled all food and humanitarian aid entering Gaza, and Israel has intermittently relaxed or increased its blockade ever since. In March of 2025 Israel began a total blockade of food, water and medicine. In May of 2025 an Israel and U.S. backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, was launched to safely distribute food to the Gazan civilians while bypassing Hamas. The GHF was later criticized and abandoned because so many Gazan civilian were killed while trying to access the distribution centers. In August of 2025, the United Nations Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) showed that parts of Gaza were experiencing famine, and Israel’s Security Cabinet approved Netanyahu’s plan to invade Gaza City.
By the beginning of September the Gaza Health Ministry estimated that 63,000 Gazans had been killed and 160, 000 had been injured.