The news of Anas al-Sharif’s killing hit me like a physical blow. A journalist with Al Jazeera, Anas was not my friend in the everyday sense – we never shared coffee, never walked the streets of Gaza together. But he was my neighbour.
He was born in the same place I was born: Jabalia refugee camp. His family’s home stood in the same crowded lanes where I grew up, among the same walls scarred by decades of displacement and war.
Over the past 674 days, I saw him every single day – not in person, but through my screen. When the rest of the world looked away, Anas was still there, reporting from the very heart of my city, from the streets where my family still lives. At a time when no one else dared to enter northern Gaza, he walked through the rubble, speaking into his camera, delivering not just the news, but fragments of home.
When Israel plunged Gaza into darkness, cutting communications and severing people from the outside world, Anas’s voice broke through like oxygen. Through his reports, I could see the neighbourhoods I knew, hear the voices I recognised, and feel the pulse of a place I am exiled from but can never leave in my heart.
He was more than a journalist – he was the thread that connected me to my people in their darkest hour. That made him a target.
The Israeli army threatened Anas several times. They warned him to stop reporting from the north. They told him his life was in danger. He knew exactly what they meant – in Gaza, such threats are never empty.
Yet he never stopped. He refused to be silenced. Instead, he doubled down, documenting every bombing, every destroyed home, every lifeless child carried from the ruins. He understood better than anyone that Israel does not just want to erase lives – it wants to erase the record of those lives. And it has made sure of that by banning international journalists from entering Gaza, leaving Palestinian reporters like Anas to bear the entire, deadly weight of telling the world what is happening.
Israel has even accused him of being Hamas – an accusation as absurd as it was predictable – despite the fact that Anas spent most of the past 23 months in front of the camera, reporting live, his location always known. I often knew exactly where he was, just by following his social media and Al Jazeera broadcasts.
The question is: why did Israel kill him now? Is it because what is coming to Gaza is even darker, with the latest announcement of invading Gaza City and displacing more than a million people?
Anas even pleaded publicly with the international community to protect journalists in Gaza so they could continue to expose Israeli war crimes. He was not asking for special treatment. He was asking for the basic right to do his job without being killed for it. That plea, like so many others from Gaza, went unanswered.
On 10 August 2025, an Israeli airstrike hit a tent outside al-Shifa Hospital where Anas and his colleagues were covering the famine and starvation gripping Gaza. The strike killed Anas along with five other journalists – Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, Moamen Aliwa, and Mohammad al-Khaldi.
It was not just an attack on individuals; it was an attack on the truth itself.
Anas’s killing is part of a relentless pattern. Since the war began in October 2023, over 230 journalists have been killed in Gaza – the deadliest conflict for journalists in modern history. The vast majority were Palestinian reporters, camera operators, and media workers, many of whom were the sole remaining eyes and ears for the outside world.
But journalists are not the only ones targeted. Israel has also killed over 400 aid workers, including UN staff and Palestinian Red Crescent volunteers. It has bombed clearly marked ambulances and convoys. More than 700 doctors, nurses, and paramedics have been killed. Hospitals and clinics have been destroyed or rendered inoperative. These are not “collateral damage” – these are deliberate strikes on the people and infrastructure meant to protect life.
And still, no one has been held accountable. Not for Anas. Not for the executed medics in Rafah. Not for the aid workers buried in mass graves. The world issues statements of concern, but statements cannot stop bombs. Words without action are just noise – and in Gaza, the noise is already deafening.
For me, this loss is deeply personal. Anas and I shared the same streets growing up, the same camp, the same stubborn will to survive. I have lived in exile for years, but through his reporting, I could still feel close to Gaza. Every time he went live, I knew I was watching someone who was not just doing his job – he was carrying the burden of speaking for an entire people.
He filmed not as an outsider looking in, but as someone living the nightmare alongside those he reported on. He showed the world mothers digging through rubble for their children. Fathers carrying tiny bodies wrapped in white cloth. Children searching for food among the debris. And he showed it without flinching, without sanitising, without letting anyone look away.
That is why they killed him. And that is why we must remember him.
If there is any award, any honour, any recognition worth giving, it belongs to the Palestinian journalists of Gaza. They have risked – and given – their lives so the truth could survive. Their work has been done under constant bombardment, without protective gear, without safe corridors, and often while their own families were being killed.
Anas al-Sharif will never report another story. But his courage remains. His words remain. And his example must remain a rallying cry – not just for press freedom, but for justice.
Because the killing of journalists is not just a crime against the press. It is a crime against history itself. It is an attempt to ensure that what happened in Gaza can one day be denied.
We cannot allow that to happen. For Anas. For every journalist, aid worker, and medic killed. For the people of Gaza still living – and dying – under siege.
Ahmed Najar is a Palestinian economist and commentator originally from Gaza, now based in London
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