"Until our last breath": Journalist Anas al-Sharif on documenting Israel's genocide in Gaza every day for 11 straight monthsThe Al Jazeera correspondent has refused to leave northern Gaza, even as Israel has threatened him and killed his colleagues.
Anas al-Sharif has become one of the most recognizable faces on television in the Arab world. For the past 11 months, the 27-year-old Al Jazeera correspondent has been reporting from the front lines of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza—now the deadliest place for journalists in modern history. By some counts, over 160 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October—a rate of one journalist killed every other day for nearly a year. Al-Sharif has personally endured threats against his life, and his home was targeted in an Israeli attack, killing his father. Al-Sharif is one of the few reporters who have remained in northern Gaza since October 7—an area from which, just a few days into the war, the Israeli government ordered 1.1 million people to evacuate and which has been the most heavily bombarded by Israel. One journalist told Drop Site News that there are only around 30 working journalists left in northern Gaza today. Al-Sharif has been a near constant presence on television and online, reporting almost every day on airstrikes, shelling, massacres, displacement, famine, death, and dismemberment—and, whenever he can, on glimpses of hope and Palestinian resilience. Take a moment and scroll through his posts on X or Instagram from just the past few days, or watch this video report from September 10 as an example (warning: graphic). Like so many Palestinians in Gaza, al-Sharif has been forced to endure the unimaginable. In November, he reported receiving multiple calls from Israeli army officers ordering him to cease coverage and to leave northern Gaza. He said he also received messages and voice notes on WhatsApp disclosing his location. In his report, he ends by saying, “I am one of the few journalists in the north covering what’s happening. Despite the threats, I am not leaving the field and I will continue reporting in north Gaza.” Less than three weeks after he was called by the Israeli army, his family home in the Jabalia refugee camp was bombed, killing his 90-year-old father, Jamal al-Sharif. Al-Sharif had been doing nonstop coverage and had not been home in 60 days. The Committee to Protect Journalists said of his father’s killing at the time: “CPJ is deeply alarmed by the pattern of journalists in Gaza reporting receiving threats, and subsequently, their family members being killed.” Al-Sharif was threatened again just last month after he broadcast the carnage of an August 10 Israeli airstrike on a school in Gaza City where thousands of displaced Palestinian were seeking shelter, killing over 100 people. “I can’t describe what’s happening,” al-Sharif said. “We’re talking about almost 100 martyrs in the Tabaeen school in Gaza City, a big massacre.” In response to another Al Jazeera journalist lauding al-Sharif’s brave coverage, the Israeli military put out a statement targeting his work. “He’s covering up the crimes of Hamas and [Islamic] Jihad taking shelter inside schools. I am convinced that he knows the names of a great number of the Hamas terrorists among those killed in the school,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee responded on X. “But he presents a lie, the motivation for which has nothing to do with the residents of Gaza.” The comments prompted Al Jazeera to condemn what it called Israel’s “blatant act of intimidation and incitement” against al-Sharif, and for CPJ to issue a statement saying it was “deeply concerned” for his safety. There has been relative silence among Western journalists and media outlets in the face of Palestinian journalists being killed in record numbers. In some cases, Israel has openly admitted to killing journalists and has accused them of being members of Hamas. Just over a week before the Tabaeen school bombing, al-Sharif’s close friend and Al Jazeera colleague, Ismail al-Ghoul, was killed in Gaza City in an Israeli drone strike on his car, along with his cameraman Rami al-Refee and a 17-year-old who was riding his bicycle nearby. Al-Ghoul was decapitated in the strike. In an act of protest, journalists in Gaza threw their press flak jackets in a pile to the ground. Al-Sharif addressed the crowd holding up al-Ghoul’s mangled flak jacket, saying, “This press vest is the vest the global and local institutions preach about. This vest did not protect our colleague Ismail. Nor did it protect any of my colleagues. As you can see, look at the vest—stained with the blood and flesh of Ismail. What did Ismail do? What did he do? Broadcast the image? Broadcast the suffering of people? Sorry Ismail, we will continue sharing the message after you.” Anas al-Sharif continues to report every day from northern Gaza. Drop Site asked him to reflect on his work in Gaza for the past 11 months. He sent a 10-minute voice note in response. His voice in the recording is weary but firm. He paints a devastating picture of life as a journalist in Gaza. These comments have been translated from Arabic and lightly edited for clarity. Anas al-Sharif’s Note From GazaAnas al-Sharif: Our coverage as journalists during this war on Gaza has been a different kind of coverage completely. We have faced extreme difficulties, we faced threats, we have been disconnected from the outside world completely by the cutting off of the internet and phone signals. We are living through tragic and difficult circumstances as journalists and we are still facing difficulties in sending messages and sending reports and sending any material in general. Of course the Palestinian journalist is living in painful and harsh conditions like the rest of his people, between displacement and bombing and destruction. So many of our journalist colleagues have lost their families, lost their family members, lost their relatives, lost their friends and loved ones. This put a lot of pressure on journalists during the war, especially because the Israeli occupation does not distinguish between journalists, children, doctors, nurses—everyone is being targeted continuously and constantly. Especially in the north of Gaza, my colleagues and I were cut off totally from the outside world from the beginning of the war. This created a huge liability, a huge problem for us. It was difficult to send reports or any content. We would have to head to very dangerous areas in order to send our reports, send the content. For the sake of continuing our coverage and sending images and stories, we would have to go to tall buildings in order to find an internet signal or a phone signal through electronic SIMs and thereby send the reports or content or the scenes that we documented, with the lowest quality, in order to broadcast it to the world and show the world what is happening here in the Gaza Strip. This is just one of the difficulties we encountered. Also, the constant and continuous threats we faced from the Israeli occupation army. Me, personally, I was threatened by the Israeli occupation army and told I needed to stop reporting from northern Gaza and go to the south. But I refused their order, and I didn’t stop my coverage for one moment despite the threats, despite the bombing, despite the siege. Because I didn’t stop and because of my continuous coverage, the Israeli occupation targeted my home, and the home of my family that led to my father being martyred, may God have mercy on him. The circumstances were cruel and difficult and painful for me, and painful for all of us, but this only made me more determined to continue reporting. We have a cause [the Palestinian cause] before we have a message in this regard. After that, it became a responsibility that was put on our shoulders, it became a responsibility that was put on my shoulders personally, that I continue reporting, despite all the dangers and difficulties we face. Maybe the world won’t act, maybe the world won’t help us, but there might be a motive to stop this war—every time I document a massacre or event or bombing, I think that maybe through this bombing or this image that the war could stop and this war would end. Every journalist in Gaza has suffered these circumstances. In the midst of our reporting we face great difficulties through the targeting of the areas that we are in, targeting close to us, directly targeting us. Despite all of this targeting, we didn’t stop, me and my colleagues in northern Gaza, our coverage. Of course it is no secret to anyone that me and my colleagues lived through very tragic and difficult circumstances. We slept in hospitals, we slept in shelters, we slept in the streets and on highways, we slept inside vehicles and cars. We were displaced more than 20 times, from one place to another, from one area to another—our situation was the same as the rest of our people. We faced great difficulties. Of course, the situation in the north was especially difficult for journalists because there were no materials available, no press supplies available. We had to make do with limited capabilities and with our simple phones in order to report the story, send the image, and report on the crimes of the Israeli occupation. The work of journalists in Gaza is arduous, exhausting, and very difficult work that no one could endure for more than an hour. The work is continuous. We don’t sleep for days as a result of the continuous bombing and shelling. Of course it is often difficult to get to the site of an incident because there are no vehicles or cars available, we would go by cart or on foot to reach a place that was targeted. The circumstances that we have lived through are circumstances that can’t be conveyed. I want to say in this recording that our circumstances are still very cruel and hard. Me and my colleagues have lived through the atmosphere of famine that hit the north of Gaza. Sometimes me and my colleagues go for days without finding a single meal. We move from place to another to try and find with great difficulty something that should be easy. Everything is extremely expensive in the north. What I am talking about is just a small part of what we can record, what we can say, what we can document. And yet the suffering is much greater, the suffering is difficult and tragic for us and our people. Yet despite this suffering, we are committed, all of us journalists, to continue on this path to continue reporting to the world, and this made us continue up until this moment. We are talking about more than 330 days of this war and the bombing and massacres are still constant and continuing. And yet, despite all these difficulties and all these tragic circumstances all of us journalists are still continuing every day and every hour to report what is happening. This is what makes us continue, that this is our cause. It is the duty of the world to see and witness what we are documenting and what we are reporting. Maybe the world won’t act, maybe the world won’t help us but there might be a motive to stop this war—every time I document a massacre or event or bombing, I think that maybe through this bombing or this image that the war could stop and this war would end. This drives us to continue in our coverage to our last breath. Of course, as I mentioned, the Israeli occupation was deliberately targeting journalists in a continuous way and we are now talking about close to 180 journalists that have been targeted in Gaza. It is clear that the Israeli occupation does not want the picture to get out, does not want the word to get out, it does not want us to document the crimes it is committing on our people, as what happened to our dear friend and colleague, the Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul, after he was assassinated by the Israeli occupation as he was documenting what was happening and the crimes of the Israeli occupation — so the Israeli occupation targeted him in a direct way so that Ismail could not continue his coverage. But what the occupation does not know is that after Ismail was martyred, we, his journalist colleagues, are more determined to continue Ismail’s path and to convey Ismail’s message, despite the tragic circumstances and despite the threats and despite the danger of the situation. We could be targeted and bombed at any moment but our situation is the same as all of our people, the same as men, women, and children who are being martyred every moment in Gaza. Abdel Qader Sabbah, a journalist in north Gaza, contributed to this report. © 2024 Drop Site News, Inc. |