A Genocide Foretold

Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine

by Chris Hedges

With intimate and harrowing portraits of the human consequences of oppression, occupation, and violence experienced in Palestine today, Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges issues a call to action urging us to bear witness and engage with the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Hedges wrote the first section of the book when he was in Ramallah in July 2024, and he draws from his experience doing extensive reporting from the Middle East, including Gaza, for the New York Times.

A Genocide Foretold confronts the stark realities of life under siege in Gaza and the heroic effort ordinary Palestinians are waging to resist and survive. Weaving together personal stories, historical context, and unflinching journalism, Chris Hedges provides an intimate portrait of systemic oppression, occupation, and violence. The book includes chapters on:

What life is like in Gaza City and Ramallah in the midst of approaching bombs and gunfire.
The history of the dispossession of Palestinians of their land in relation to the ideology of Zionism.
A portrait of Amr, a 17-year-old highschool student who is forced to evacuate his village with his family.
Psychoanalysis of the state of permanent war that has led to the destruction of hospitals, telecommunications centers, governmental buildings, roads, homes universities, schools, and libraries and archaeological and heritage sites in Gaza.
The ways in which the collective retribution against innocents is a familiar tactic employed by colonial rulers.
A heartbreaking final chapter called “Letter to the Children of Gaza.”

Hedges, the Pulitzer Prize–winning former Middle East Bureau Chief for The New York Times, is an Arabic speaker who spent seven years covering the conflict. He wrote the first section of the book when he was in Ramallah in July 2024. A Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, he is also the author of two bestselling books, War is a Force that Gives us Meaning and The Greatest Evil is War. In Requiem for Gaza he writes with an emotional depth that can only be achieved from spending many years on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank. Requiem for Gaza is a call to action, urging us to bear witness and engage with the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

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Available for pre-order. This item will be available on March 4, 2025.

Paperback

$13.26

$18.95

Publish Date: 2025-03-04

ISBN: 9781644214855

Pages: 224

Forthcoming

Ebook

Publish Date: 2025-03-04

ISBN: 9781644214862

Pages: 224

“With a searing urgency, Chris Hedges brings readers face to face with Israel’s devastation of Gaza. A Genocide Foretold is a scathing denunciation of the long violence of the Zionist project and its U.S. and European backers. The writing reflects his deep experience as a correspondent from Central America to Bosnia and his passionate moral outrage against both war and the hypocrisy that justifies it. Fast-paced and dazzling, the book gives first-hand accounts of the horrors of war and the courage of those resisting it.”

– Aviva Chomsky, author of Organizing for Power and Central America's Forgotten History

“Chris Hedges writes with heart and extraordinary moral clarity about a genocide that has unfurled in front of our eyes. A Genocide Foretold indicts not only the racist bloodlust that has overtaken Israeli society, but the full complicity of the U.S. government and media, and the hypocrisies at the heart of the West’s most cherished illusions.”

– Ben Ehrenreich, author of The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine

“Chris Hedges profoundly describes exactly what is happening in Palestine and talks on behalf of the victims. In his painful writings, he makes their voices heard. This is genocide as I lived it in Gaza for three months. The book is full of stories, information, and shocking realities. This is not just reporting from there or about them, it is a courageous challenge to all attempts to misinform us about what life looks like in Gaza. Profound, honest, painful, moving and real…the book takes us through history, geography, politics, and news and helps us better understand the Zionist occupation. We cannot escape after learning about it! Chris is telling us: now you know.”

– Atef Abu Saif, Former Minister of Culture of Palestine

CHRIS HEDGES was a war correspondent for two decades in Central America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans, fifteen of them with The New York Times, where he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He is the author of fourteen books, including War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War and his latest, Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison. The passages in this book are taken from his writings on war, primarily from Truthdig and ScheerPost, over the past twenty years, as well as from numerous talks and lectures. He writes a column every Monday for ScheerPost and has a show, The Chris Hedges Report, on The Real News. He holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard University and has taught at Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University and The University of Toronto. He has taught students earning their college degree from Rutgers University in the New Jersey prison system since 2010. You can find him at chrishedges.substack.com.

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