Israeli Strike Kills Journalist Anas Al-Sharif | The Voice of Gaza Falls Silent

Reena Hamad, News Section Editor

Photo//Unknown Source

On Sunday, August 10, the world was met with the devastating news that the “Voice of Gaza” Anas Al-Sharif, Al Jazeera Arabic’s acclaimed journalist, was killed in a targeted airstrike. The attack struck a clearly marked press tent outside the main gate of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Al-Sharif, 28, died alongside fellow journalists Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa, and Mohammed Noufal. Witnesses around Al-Shifa reported having heard a deafening explosion that tore through the tent that night. The Israeli military later issued a statement admitting to the attack. 

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had warned just weeks earlier of their worries that Al-Sharif was in imminent danger, citing a smear campaign against him as a likely precursor to assassination. “The danger of his life is now acute,” CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah said on July 24. “Israel has killed at least six Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza during this war. These latest unfounded accusations represent an effort to manufacture consent to kill Al-Sharif.” 

The death toll of journalists in Gaza since October 7, 2023 now pushes 238, among them Hamza al-Dahdouh, Ismail al-Ghoul, Rami al-Refee, and Hossam Shabat, all of whose names are eternally written upon the mournful pages of history. 

For more than 650 days of war, Al-Sharif had been a steadfast voice for Gaza, reporting under relentless bombardment from land, sea, and air. Known for his composure, strength, and unyielding courage, Al-Sharif’s reporting came at extraordinary personal cost. In December 2023, an Israeli airstrike destroyed his family home in Jabalia refugee camp, killing his father weeks after Al-Sharif received multiple phone threats from occupation forces ordering him to stop covering northern Gaza. His father, who was in poor health at the time, had been unable to join the rest of the family when they evacuated to a UNRWA school.

Al-Sharif, a graduate of the Faculty of Media at Al-Aqsa University and recipient of the 2018 Best Young Journalist Award in Palestine, specialized in radio and television reporting. He endured repeated threats, communication blackouts, and targeted harassment, sometimes having to replace his SIM card more than five times a day to get his reports out. “This is clear incitement and an attempt to assassinate my voice, either through bombing or moral distortion,” he once said. “However, I will not stop conveying the truth.” 

In one of his final broadcasts, Al-Sharif, worn from hunger like the rest of Gaza, was overwhelmed with tears as he struggled to report on the mass starvation around him, while onlookers urged him to “Keep pushing, Anas…keep going…you are our voice.” In his last public statement on X (Twitter), he made one last desperate call to the world, warning of the threat of a full-scale invasion of Gaza and that “if this madness does not end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased.” 

Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham condemned the killing, saying that “in the past two years, Al-Sharif has been doing systemic, courageous journalistic work, reporting to the entire world about the destruction of his people.” Al Jazeera Media Network issued a scathing statement, calling the strike yet another intentional attack on press freedom and urging the international community to put an end to the targeting of journalists and the escalating humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.

During Gaza’s first ceasefire in January, Al-Sharif was seen on air removing his helmet and press jacket in a rare moment of relief, and on August 20, he died wearing this same vest, now lifted from his body one last time. As the world mourns the death of Anas Al-Sharif, his absence fuels growing fears over what will unfold in Gaza, now more vulnerable than ever as the voices telling its story are extinguished one by one. 

As heartfelt tributes pour in from every corner, a single question echoes through the silence he left behind: Who will bear witness now?