War Crimes Then and Now: Hiroshima to Gaza

August 10, 2025

Peter G. Prontzos

This week marks 80 years since the United States used its nuclear weapons against the civilian population of Japan in August 1945.

Prior to that, the U.S. began the mass firebombing of Japanese citizens. On the night of March 9, U.S. bombers, “dropped 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo, unleashing a firestorm that incinerated a quarter of the city and killed 85,000 people. Over the next four months, the raids continued and, “razed almost every major Japanese city.”