London tribute honours Anas al-Sharif and Gaza’s killed journalists as speakers condemn media silence

A year after the killing of the Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif, fellow reporters gathered in London on Friday to remember a broadcaster who became one of Gaza’s most recognisable witnesses, and to confront what speakers described as a systematic campaign to erase Palestinian journalism.

The event, "Bearing Witness: Tribute Panel for Anas al-Sharif & Gaza’s Murdered Journalists," was held at Palestine House and organised by the Palestinian Youth Movement.

It brought together Ahmed Al-Naouq, a Palestinian journalist at Palestine Deep Dive; Mariam Al-Sayeh, a journalist and media researcher at Al Jazeera; and Malak Tantesh, a Guardian reporter formerly based in Gaza. Abubaker Abed, a Palestinian journalist who evacuated Gaza for Dublin, joined remotely.

The panel took place as Palestinian media workers continue to face a devastating toll. The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate says that 264 journalists have been killed, 572 injured and 38 detained since October 2023, while 150 media institutions and infrastructure sites have been destroyed.

Al-Sharif, 28, was a prominent Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent whose broadcasts from northern Gaza made him an essential source of information for Palestinians and audiences abroad during Israel’s genocidal war.

He was killed on 10 August 2025 when an Israeli strike hit a tent used by journalists near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Five other Palestinian journalists were also killed in the attack: Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh; camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa; and freelance photojournalist Mohammed al-Khaldi.

At Friday’s event, the speakers unanimously agreed – the incident was not murder, but a mass assassination.

Israel acknowledged targeting al-Sharif and alleged he was linked to Hamas. Al Jazeera rejected the claim, while the Committee to Protect Journalists said the allegations against him were unsubstantiated and called for accountability. The killing followed months of threats and public accusations against the reporter, who had become known for reporting from areas subjected to intense bombardment, displacement and starvation.

For Tantesh, who began reporting from Gaza in 2024 at the age of 20 and was displaced 13 times during the genocide, al-Sharif’s standing was evident in the response he received from ordinary Palestinians.

"I met Anas just once, just a few days before he was killed," she told The New Arab. "I was reporting about the situation at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza. His smile was shining the place and everyone was happy to see him, especially the patients, who saw him as the messenger who would deliver their suffering to the outside world."

Abed called al-Sharif "a giant of a man", describing his work as "very extensive, very thorough, very professional, indispensable, and instrumental in shedding light on the genocide in Gaza, particularly on the vast destruction and catastrophic famine levels in the northern parts of the Strip."

"He is the best in our lifetime," Abed told The New Arab.

Reporting and surviving

Much of the discussion focused on the impossible conditions confronting Palestinian journalists, who have had to report on Israel’s assault while enduring the same hunger, displacement, loss and threat of death as the people they cover.

"Our work as journalists was extremely difficult and exhausting," Tantesh said. "We were experiencing fear, hunger and displacement, just like everyone else in Gaza. At the same time, we continued reporting and risking our lives to tell the truth and share our suffering and our voices with the outside world."

She described the fear of being killed while working, and of the consequences for her family. "I clearly remember how scared I was of being targeted while working," she said. "I was afraid that my family would not be able to recognise me, or that they would not even be able to find my body. I was also afraid that my family and the people around me would be killed, leaving me alone."

Abed, who said he felt compelled to leave Gaza after receiving repeated threats on social media, likened the labour expected of Palestinian reporters to “the work of a superhuman”.

Yet, he said, journalists continued because of their attachment to their homes and communities. "We did it because we loved our homeland," he said. "Because we love our homeland, we love our people, we love justice to be served, and we want our human rights and dignity and freedom, as any other human being around the world."

Speakers also emphasised the dignity with which journalists such as al-Sharif worked amid extreme deprivation. They recalled the difficulty of preparing to go live while facing queues for bathrooms, unstable communications and shortages of food.

Al-Sharif, they said, often refused food aid himself, accepting only food offered directly by others even as people phoned urging him to eat.

A struggle over the narrative

The panel framed the killing of journalists not as a series of isolated wartime deaths, but as part of a broader effort to restrict Palestinians’ ability to document their own reality.

"The killing of journalists has been systematic," Abed said. "I’m so lucky to have survived, and I also feel sorry and contrite that other people, other journalists, have been killed. I feel a lot of guilt."

"It’s a tactic," he added. "It’s not some sort of aberrational activity. It is a tactic, and it is something that Israel deliberately did because [journalists] expose the unbelievable magnitude of what they have perpetrated in Gaza."

The speakers argued that the pressure on Palestinian journalists has changed over the course of the war: from threats, online discrediting and attempts to constrain live reporting, to the killing of media workers.

They said the attacks have also stripped Gaza of established reporters whom Palestinians had long relied on, leaving younger and less experienced journalists to fill the gap.

Mariam Al-Sayeh argued that the media’s failure was not limited to under-reporting mass casualties. "Mainstream media still cannot accept what happened," she said, criticising coverage that focuses on spectacular moments of violence while neglecting the conditions that make daily life unliveable, including heatwaves, deprivation and the continued deaths of children after ceasefires.

"Every day, the media chooses to ignore what is happening in Palestine," she said, as the speakers expressed outrage at the censorship reserved for Palestinian journalists who would refer to Israel's deadly campaign as a "genocide".

Al-Naouq urged journalists and media institutions to resist an audience-driven approach that prizes novelty over necessity. "We should not actually care what the audience wants, but what the audience needs," he said. "And the people need to see what’s going on in Gaza."

Abed was equally critical of political and media institutions beyond Israel, telling The New Arab: "What we are seeing is something that has been enabled by Western media outlets, by Arab media outlets, and by Western and Arab regimes. They have enabled all this. They stayed silent. Not all they stayed silent, but they funded the genocide."

On accountability, Abed said he had little faith in the international community, noting that al-Sharif had appealed for protection after receiving threats. "If you want to achieve accountability, which I don’t see in a complicit, rude world who has been standing by for the past few years, you go to occupied Palestine," he said. "You take the soldiers responsible. You put the Israeli military under the pressure and under the accountability umbrella. Other than that, this won’t happen."

A serious response requires more than condemnation. UNESCO called for a "thorough and transparent investigation" after the killings, while press-freedom organisations have called for answers from Israel and accountability for attacks on media workers.

"Do not forget Gaza"

Towards the end of the evening, al-Sharif’s will was read aloud. Speakers noted that many journalists in Gaza had prepared similar messages because of the persistent danger they faced.

"If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice," al-Sharif wrote.

"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, without distortion or falsification."

He left behind his daughter Sham, his son Salah and his wife, Umm Salah, whom he described as remaining "steadfast as the trunk of an olive tree that does not bend" despite the separation imposed by Israel's war.

Al-Sharif’s final appeal was directed beyond the journalists’ tent where he was killed: "I urge you not to let the chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland."

"Do not forget Gaza," he wrote, "and do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance."