“Israel has succeeded in killing me.”

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2025/08/13/israel-has-succeeded-in-killing-me/

The Israeli military just assassinated six Palestinian journalists in a targeted strike, among them beloved Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, one of the most prominent journalists still reporting from Gaza.

Like the other 200+ Palestinian journalists it has killed since the genocide began, the Israeli military murdered Anas and his colleagues for showing the world the truth about the genocide. We honor their memories by remembering them not in death, but in the precious lives they lived.

Israel’s war on the press

On Sunday, August 10, the Israeli military assassinated six reporters in Gaza City, four of whom were journalists at Al Jazeera: Correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, as well as freelance cameramen Momen Aliwa and freelance journalist Mohammed al-Khalidi.

The Israeli military has been deliberately targeting journalists in Gaza since the very first days of the genocide. To date, it has killed nearly 270 journalists and media workers, according to Al Jazeera. That’s more journalists killed than in the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, Vietnam War, the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and the 2000s war in Afghanistan, combined.

Journalists’ families aren’t safe, either. In October 2023, just a few weeks into the genocide, an Israeli strike on the home of Al Jazeera’s Gaza City Burea Chief, Wael Dahdouh, killed his wife Amna, his 15-year-old son Mahmoud, his 7-year-old daughter Sham, and his 1-year-old grandson Adam. Less than a year later, the Israeli military targeted and killed Dahdouh’s eldest son, Hamza — also a reporter for Al Jazeera — as he was returning from an assignment.

Smeared as terrorists

The Israeli military didn’t hesitate to take credit for Sunday’s massacre. Like clockwork, it reiterated a widely condemned accusation it first made in October 2024, claiming that al-Sharif was targeted because he was a “terrorist.” Throughout the genocide, the Israeli government has used accusations of terrorism to discredit and target Palestinian journalists. Unsurprisingly, it seldom if ever provides evidence for such claims. 

In July 2024, the Israeli military carried out a targeted strike on the car of two other Al Jazeera journalists, Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman, Rami al-Rifi, killing both men. The very next day, the Israeli military accused al-Ghoul of being a terrorist. 

In March 2025, the Israeli military killed 23-year-old Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabbat in a targeted strike. He was one of six journalists — among them Anas al-Sharif — named in an Israeli government list of “terrorists” that it released in October 2024: effectively a hit list.

“Killed for nothing more than telling the truth”

For nearly two years, Palestinian journalists in Gaza have been reporting under unimaginable circumstances. Deliberately targeted by the Israeli military and discredited and ignored by many of their Western colleagues, they have made enormous sacrifices — and in many cases, given their lives — to share the reality of Israel’s genocide with the world. 

Mere weeks before he was killed, Anas al-Sharif broke down on live air while reporting on the Israeli government-induced famine ravaging Gaza. “People are now collapsing in the streets from hunger,” he reported through tears. Off camera, a man urged al-Sharif to keep going: “Continue the coverage. You are our voices.” The clip quickly went viral, helping expose the severity of the famine to the world. 

We are forever indebted to these journalists, without whom the world would know far less about Israel’s genocide. We honor their memories by remembering them not in death, but in the precious lives they lived — and in their courageous acts of defiance against a regime bent on their annihilation.

Anas al-Sharif was a 29-year-old correspondent for Al Jazeera and one of the most well-known journalists still reporting from the frontlines of the genocide in Gaza. Born in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, al-Sharif was only 11 when Israel imposed its suffocating blockade on Gaza in 2007, and he was a teenager when Israel launched its devastating war on Gaza in 2014. 

Al-Sharif was a married father of two, leaving behind his wife, Bayan, his four-year-old daughter, Sham, and his one-year-old son, Salah. During a temporary “ceasefire” in January 2025, he was reunited with his family after 15 months of separation — and met his infant son for the first time: 

In December 2023, after Israeli military officials called al-Sharif and warned him to stop reporting, his 90-year-old father was killed in an Israeli strike on his home. Still, al-Sharif continued reporting. In October 2024, Israel accused him and five other Al Jazeera journalists of being terrorists. Knowing he could soon be dead, al-Sharif prepared a final message, to be shared in the event that he is killed by the Israeli military.

“I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is,” he wrote. “Do not forget Gaza.”

Hossam Shabbat was a 23-year-old correspondent for Al Jazeera. He was only 21 when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza — in his own words, “a college student with dreams like anyone else.”

Shabbat was one of the few reporters in Gaza who refused to leave the north, even when death was imminent. He was displaced over twenty times during the course of the genocide, and in November 2024, he was injured in an Israeli airstrike. But he never stopped reporting. “His writing was lyrical and arresting,” wrote Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Shabbat’s editor at Drop Site News. “I struggled to translate and edit his pieces—to do them justice.” In February 2025, less than a month before his death, Shabbat was reunited with his mother after over a year of separation:

Like Anas al-Sharif, Shabbat prepared a final message in anticipation of his murder by the Israeli military. “If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed—most likely targeted—by the Israeli occupation forces,” he wrote. “I ask you now: do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories—until Palestine is free.” The Israeli military killed Shabbat in a targeted airstrike in March 2025.

Ismail al-Ghoul was a 27-year-old correspondent for Al Jazeera. He was well-known for his reporting from Gaza City and Israel’s siege on al-Shifa hospital, for which he was detained for 12 hours by the Israeli military and brutally beaten. Still, al-Ghoul kept reporting. Both his brother and father were killed in the genocide.

“With his recurring sign-off, stretching out the vowels of his name — ‘Ismaeel Alghoool, Al Jazeera, Gaza City’ — he was a reassuring presence to me and his millions of viewers worldwide,” Palestinian journalist Mohammed R. Mhawish wrote after al-Ghoul’s death. “For an entire generation of young Palestinian journalists, he will be remembered as a lasting example of courage and perseverance.”

In July 2024, the Israeli military killed al-Ghoul alongside his cameraman, Rami al-Rifi, in a targeted airstrike. At the time, al-Ghoul had been separated for months from his wife, Malak, and his young daughter, Zeina.

Mere days before he was killed, al-Ghoul shared with a friend: “I no longer know the taste of sleep. The bodies of children and the screams of the injured and their blood-soaked images never leave my sight.”

Like so many other journalists in Gaza, Ismail, Anas, and Hossam were killed “for nothing more than telling the truth.” All of them were under 30, having spent most of their lives under Israel’s punishing siege. Each dreamt of liberation from Israeli occupation and sacrificed their lives to report on Israel’s genocide. With each of their untimely deaths, an entire world of possibilities was extinguished. 

Their courage in the face of unbearable suffering is a testament to Palestinian steadfastness — and an urgent call upon each of us to speak truth to power, to uplift the voices of Palestinians who for nearly two years have live-streamed a genocide being carried out against them, and to keep doing everything in our power to bring that genocide to an end.