A demonstrator holds a picture of Anas Al-Sharif, one of four Al Jazeera journalists killed in an Israeli strike days earlier, during a protest in solidarity with journalists in the Gaza Strip and condemning the recent strike, organised by journalists outside Egypt’s Press Syndicate in Cairo on Wednesday.Credit: AFP/KHALED DESOUKI

“If these words of mine reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. … God knows that I exerted every effort and strength I had to be a support and a voice for my people, from the moment I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabalya refugee camp. My hope was that God would prolong my life until I could return with my family and loved ones to our original hometown, the occupied Al-Majdal Asqalan. But God’s will prevailed, and His decree was fulfilled.”

It was not God’s will that determined the fate of journalist Anas Al-Sharif on Sunday, together with three other journalists and two civilians, in the press tent adjacent to Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital. It was not the will of God, but rather a criminal Israeli military drone that targeted al-Sharif, Al Jazeera’s most prominent correspondent in the war. Not God’s will but rather Israel’s will to execute him on the grounds that he had led a “Hamas cell,” without presenting a shred of evidence to support this.

Many in the world believed the military’s version, just as they had believed that the Israel Defense Forces did not kill Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin in 2022. Even those who want to believe that Al-Sharif was a cell leader must ask: And what about the five people who were killed with him? Were they deputy heads of the cell? One cannot believe anything that is said by an army that massacres journalists so cold-bloodedly or a state that does not permit free coverage of the war, not even the stories about the head of the terror cell from Jabalya.

It is hard to believe – or perhaps nothing is hard to believe anymore – how little interest was shown here in the killing of four journalists. The Israeli press was split between those who ignored the story and those who reported that Israel had eliminated a terrorist. Equipped with zero information, nearly everyone mobilized to tell the story that the Israel Defense Forces dictated to them and to hell with the truth. And also to hell with showing solidarity to a brave colleague.

Palestinians recite the Fatiha over the grave of Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al-Sharif, who was killed alongside other journalists in an Israeli strike, at a cemetery in Gaza City on August Tuesday.Credit: AFP/BASHAR TALEB

The only evidence presented was a photograph of Al-Sharif with Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar. This is indeed grounds for execution.

A million times braver than any Israeli journalist, and less co-opted to serve the propaganda of his state and his people than Nir Dvori and Or Heller, Al-Sharif could have taught members of the Israeli media the fundamentals of journalism.

The chutzpah of the press here knows no bounds: Al Jazeera is a propaganda network, scream the reporters from the Israeli TV channels, who have given a bad name to ultranationalist propaganda and the concealment of truth during this war.

If Al Jazeera is propaganda, then what is Channel 12? And channels 11, 13, 14 and 15? Do they have any connection at all to journalism in this war?

Palestinian children and a journalist check the destroyed Al Jazeera tent at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Monday following an overnight strike by the Israeli military.Credit: AFP/BASHAR TALEB

When journalism died, so too did truth and solidarity. Those who have killed more journalists in this war than have been killed in any other in history – 186 according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, 263 according to B’Tselem – will one day also turn their guns on us, the Israeli journalists who do not find favor in their eyes. It’s hard to understand how Israeli journalists fail to comprehend this. Or perhaps they plan to continue their submissive service to the Israeli propaganda machine, because in their eyes, this is journalism.

But this week, the IDF shelled a press tent, and the scenes you didn’t see were horrifying: bodies of journalists were pulled from the burning tent, and their Israeli colleagues cheered or were silent. What a disgrace, both personal and professional. How is this less shocking than the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi? Because they didn’t dismember al-Sharif’s body?

Al-Sharif’s friends and his will say that he knew he was a target. When the IDF began making threats on his life in October, Irene Khan, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, said she was concerned for his fate. Al-Sharif, she said, was the last surviving journalist in the northern Gaza Strip. That’s precisely why Israel killed him. “Do not forget Gaza,” were the last words in his will

Gideon Levy
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