GAZA CITY — On Sunday evening, a targeted and deliberate Israeli strike on a media tent outside Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital killed Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif along with five of his colleagues. Al-Sharif was widely known as the voice of Gaza, exposing the Israeli genocide to the world.
For nearly two years, since the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza, Palestinian journalist Anas Jamal Al-Sharif remained a prominent figure in international news coverage, one of the few voices to break through the media blockade, exposing to the world the Israeli starvation policy and atrocities.
Yet that voice, always rising from beneath the rubble, became one the Israeli occupation forces sought to silence. The military repeatedly targeted Al-Sharif with smear campaigns, accusing him of ties to resistance factions, allegations he consistently and firmly denied.
Who’s Anas Al-Sharif?
- Anas Jamal Al-Sharif was born on December 3, 1996, in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. He grew up amid Israel’s repeated wars, spending his childhood navigating the crowded alleyways of the camp.
- He was educated in schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and the Palestinian Ministry of Education. In 2014, he enrolled at Al-Aqsa University to study Radio and Television, graduating in 2018.
- Al-Sharif began his media career as a volunteer with the Shamal Media Network before joining Al Jazeera as a correspondent in Gaza.
- Based in Jabalia and Gaza City amid devastation and Israeli-made famine, he brought to the world’s attention unprecedented scenes: children crying from hunger at night, mothers searching through rubble for food, and school tents turned into shelters for thousands of displaced people enduring cold, insects, and disease.
- To overcome the media blockade, Al-Sharif frequently climbed rooftops of homes and hospitals in search of an internet signal to broadcast his reports. In one broadcast, he described the dire situation: “What pains me most is not only the bombing, but seeing a child fall asleep crying from hunger after not finding a single meal all day.”
- He documented the Israeli military’s repeated and deliberate targeting of UNRWA schools and hospitals, as well as densely populated civilian areas.
In recognition of his courage in documenting war crimes and his commitment to providing firsthand testimony of Palestinian civilians’ suffering amid bombardment and famine, Amnesty International Australia awarded him the “Human Rights Defender” prize last year. - Due to the impact of his reporting, the Israeli occupation forces included Al-Sharif among their media targets. Since the outbreak of the ongoing assault, they have repeatedly accused him of affiliation with Hamas in an attempt to justify targeting him, claims he has consistently denied.
- On December 11, 2023, Israeli airstrikes hit Al-Sharif’s family home in Jabalia, killing his father.
- In response to the campaign against him, Al-Sharif stated on social media: “The Israeli army spokesperson has launched a campaign of threats and incitement against me due to my work with Al Jazeera. I am a journalist without political affiliations, and my sole mission is to report the truth from the ground impartially.”
- In July 2023, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Irene Khan, condemned the threats and accusations against Al-Sharif, warning that they placed his life at risk.
- Khan criticized Israel’s labeling of journalists as “terrorists” as baseless and urged the international community to prevent such targeting, emphasizing that the killing and detention of journalists is a tactic to suppress the truth.
- At the end of July, Al Jazeera issued a statement condemning the Israeli military’s incitement against its journalists in Gaza, particularly against Al-Sharif, denouncing ongoing campaigns against its staff since the start of the assault.
- Observers assert that a courageous and vocal journalist like Al-Sharif is intolerable to Israel, especially amid its preparations for a new phase of military operations in Gaza.
- His assassination, alongside his colleagues, coincided with Israel’s plans to occupy Gaza City as part of a plan approved by the Israeli occupation last week.
C. QNN
