The exact number of people killed by US (or Israeli) drones since September 11, 2001, is unknown. The first US drone strike was a botched effort to kill Taliban leader Mullah Omar in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Some estimates put the number of individuals killed by the US military and CIA between 9,000 and 17,000, which includes at least 2,200 children. The UK-based transparency organization Airwars released a report on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 and found that the US had unleashed at least 91,340 strikes across seven major war zones in the previous twenty years and that the civilian death toll was between 22,679 and 48,308. It is arguable whether drone attacks, launched by drone pilots against people who have no idea what's coming, are even war at all but something more grotesque; dehumanization of those targeted because there is no real, human contact between attacker and victim. Israel and the US celebrate these killings by releasing drone footage to the media.

— Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein (30% - 31%)