Anas al-Sharif was murdered for being Gaza's voice

By killing five Al Jazeera journalists, Israel hopes to obscure its genocide from the world. Instead, this brings it into sharper focus

Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif reports in Gaza City on 10 October 2024 (AFP)

Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif reports in Gaza City on 10 October 2024 (AFP)

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They killed him where the wounded cling to life.

Outside al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the Israeli army assassinated Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, along with camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, in a direct bombardment of their media tent.

This was no accident of war. It was a precision attack - the deliberate erasure of journalists who would not stop telling the truth.

Sharif was a young Palestinian from Jabalia, in northern Gaza. He had been covering the war for 22 months. His only “crime” was refusing to turn away, as he insisted on exposing the realities of genocide: the boundless killing, the calculated destruction of every thread of life. He worked without pause.

Born in 1996, Sharif was three years old when the Second Intifada began; he was 10 when Israel first blockaded Gaza, 12 when the 2008 Gaza war erupted, and 18 during the 2014 assault.

He was just 28 when Israel finally killed him on Sunday. His life was mapped by wars, each one deadlier than the last.

For 22 months, Sharif’s reporting entered millions of homes across the Arab world. More than a journalist, he became a trusted witness. His audience knew his grief as much as they knew his voice: the killing of his father by Israeli fire, and his separation from his mother, his daughter Sham, his baby son Salah - born during the genocide - and his wife Bayan.

We followed him to the fiercest fronts in northern Gaza, where he worked through bombardment and starvation, never bending, never silenced.

'You are our voice'

Sharif stepped into the void left by colleagues already murdered, including Al Jazeera’s Ismail al-Ghoul, killed by Israeli fire. Another colleague, Wael Dahdouh, kept reporting after his wife, children and grandson were massacred, but later left Gaza to seek treatment for his own war wounds.

Sharif inherited their mission: to tell Gaza’s story as the world tried to look away. Now, with the killing of Sharif and his four colleagues, Israel has annihilated Al Jazeera’s entire Gaza City crew.

We remember the day he broke down live on air, voice trembling as he watched a woman collapse from hunger - and a passerby called out: “Carry on, Anas, you are our voice.”

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We remember the day in January when he removed his press vest live on camera to announce a ceasefire - a brief breath after relentless killing. We remember him being lifted onto the shoulders of grateful Palestinians in Gaza, honoured for his courage.

For all of this, he became the sworn enemy of a genocidal state. Israeli intelligence threatened him openly. First came the killing of his father, after Sharif said he received calls from the Israeli military, warning him that he would be punished if he did not stop his coverage. It was a blood-stained warning. Then came the killings of his colleagues.

Finally, the threat was carried out: his body and those of his four colleagues were shredded by an Israeli drone strike - as in thousands of other assassinations across Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.

Sharif and his colleagues were too dangerous to Israel's propaganda. The next wave, the Israeli government intends, will unfold in darkness

Avichay Adraee, Israel’s most venomous mouthpiece, targeted him by name. Late last month, the Committee to Protect Journalists warned: “These latest unfounded accusations represent an effort to manufacture consent to kill Al-Sharif.” Adraee is the new Joseph Goebbels, armed with social media instead of radio, marking targets for death with a smirk.

Sharif saw friends and colleagues shot dead before his eyes. He carried their coffins, then returned to work with the dust of burial still on his hands. He drew strength from Shireen Abu Akleh, killed by Israel in Jenin in 2022. She was Christian; he was Muslim. Israel makes no distinction when waging war on the truth.

If Israel had wanted to arrest him, it could have done so. Sharif’s location was always known. He had no weapon. He often worked within sight of Israeli checkpoints. But they did not come to arrest; they came to kill.

It was also preparation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war on Gaza has dragged on for 22 months without achieving its declared aims, except the mass killing of civilians and the obliteration of life’s foundations. His coalition is fraying.

Now, with cabinet approval, he is mobilising for the final invasion of what remains of Gaza: the culminating phase of ethnic cleansing. That campaign will be easier if no journalists remain to bear witness. Sharif and his colleagues were too dangerous to their propaganda. The next wave, the Israeli government intends, will unfold in darkness.

Massacres in plain view

Within hours of killing Sharif, the Israeli army issued a statement not of remorse, but of pride - boasting of the killing, smearing him as a “terrorist”, and producing “evidence” too convenient to verify.

It is the oldest trick of the state assassin: kill the journalist, then assassinate his name. And still, we are asked to believe that a man who spent more than 670 days reporting live for an international news network was secretly commanding a militant cell, between filming bombed hospitals and burying children.

Some mainstream outlets repeated the libel, just as they repeated Netanyahu’s lies hours earlier, denying starvation in Gaza, blaming Hamas for Israel’s own destruction. Words dismantled by international reports, yet broadcast without shame.

Sharif knew this might be his fate. A few months ago, he wrote his farewell: “If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice … I entrust you with Palestine - the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls.”

Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al Sharif’s final message before assassination by Israel

Israel’s goal in killing Sharif and his colleagues was not only to hide the truth of its massacres, but to target him personally - to break the spirit of Palestinians in Gaza, aware of their attachment to him, their trust in him, their pride in his courage.

But this plan will fail. His death will not break Gaza’s will. It will only make its people more determined to follow in his path.

There is a video of Sharif with his daughter Sham, sitting close, smiling as he asks: “[US President Donald] Trump wants us to leave Gaza. Do you want to leave? … To Qatar? Jordan? Egypt? Turkey?” She shakes her head at each name. “Why?” he asks. Her answer is simple: “Because I love Gaza.” He pulls her into his arms, holding her with the tenderness of a father who knows her answer is the same one beating in his own chest.

They carried him on their shoulders, just as they once carried Abu Akleh, while Israeli soldiers tried to strike her coffin to the ground - and in that act, they pledged there would rise thousands more guardians of a truth no bullet can kill.

Sharif’s killing is not an ending. It is the erasure of a witness before the curtain rises on what comes next: massacres planned in plain view, sanctioned by foreign allies, to drive Gaza’s last survivors from their land.

Sharif’s blood is not Israel’s burden alone. It stains the hands of every government that looked away; every newsroom that echoed the murderer’s script; every leader who armed the hand that took aim at his heart.

It runs through the fingers of all who watched - again and again - as Israel hunted Gaza’s reporters, and did nothing but let the lens go dark.

This was not just the killing of a man. It was the silencing of a voice the world needed.

And it was made possible by a chorus of blind eyes, by a world that let Israel slaughter journalist after journalist, and walk away untouched.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

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