Anas al-Sharif’s mother: ‘My son was invited to Qatar, but he refused to leave Gaza’

Fawzia al-Sharif doesn’t know where to begin when it comes to talking about her slain son, Anas al-Sharif. 

“What can I tell you? There’s no one like Anas,” she told Middle East Eye in a displacement camp in Gaza City. 

Since Israel’s genocide on Gaza began in October 2023, her son had become one of the most famous journalists in Gaza.

The Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent was loved and greeted by Palestinians everywhere he went. 

When he reported the announcement of a short-lived ceasefire in January, Sharif was hoisted onto the shoulders of a jubilant passerby. 

“He was tender with his sisters and his brothers,” his mother said. “He was kind to the people outside. To everyone, in everything.

“Everything he did was good. He never got involved in anything bad,” she added.

On Sunday night, Sharif was brutally killed alongside five of his colleagues when Israeli forces deliberately targeted their clearly marked media tent near al-Shifa hospital in central Gaza. 

Middle East Eye contributor Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed al-Khalidi were also killed. It brought the total number of journalists killed by Israel during the genocide to 238.

Fawzia remembers fondly the last time she saw her son, 10 days ago. 

“I hadn’t seen him for a while, and suddenly he came to see me,” she recalls. “We sat together. I was happy with his visit. Then he left, and I didn’t see him again.” 

'God willing there are young people to continue Anas’s path, exposing the occupation'

- Fawzia al-Sharif, mother

His mother said that Sharif was offered the opportunity, along with his family, to leave Gaza, but he refused. 

“They invited him to Qatar. He said, ‘I can’t go… I must leave Gaza only for paradise.' That was his mission,” she explained. 

The Israeli military claimed, without providing any credible evidence, that it killed Sharif because he "served as the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organisation".

Israel has routinely made such unsubstantiated claims about journalists, which have been strongly rejected by Al Jazeera and by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Fawzia said that her son spent his whole life helping other people. 

“If he saw elderly people, he’d take them. I’d ask him ‘Who are these?’ He would say ‘These are for God, Mum. Take them.' He loved people. 

“All his life, from when he was a child, through university, studying and learning, he stuck to this principle.” 

'Daddy is in paradise'

Sharif was married, and had two young children. 

Fawzia sat with her grandchildren, four-year-old Sham and one-year-old Salah, showing them a picture of the two of them with their father. He was wearing his press vest, while Sham proudly held his Al Jazeera microphone. 

“Daddy is in paradise,” said Sham, as she kissed the screen of the phone. 

“Who did he go to?” asked Fawzia, to which her granddaughter replied: “He went to my grandfather and my uncle Shadi.” 

Fawzia said that as Israel’s siege and war caused famine across Gaza, her son reported the situation while suffering through it himself. 

“He worked with heart and dedication. He went straight to the point.

“God willing there are young people to continue in his place and continue Anas’s path, exposing the occupation,” she added.

Fawzia said she was proud of her son, and held her head high because of him. 

“I am the mother of Anas al-Sharif. I send my message to the whole world.”