Anas al-Sharif wanted no pedestal, only that Gaza be remembered

Today marks one year since Palestinian Aljazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a tent for journalists outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

I remember exactly what happened the moment I learned of Anas’ martyrdom.

My husband yelled from the other room for me to help him as our son vomited his chocolate milk. I was on my way to them when I glanced at my phone and saw a text from a friend: “oh my God, oh my God, they killed Anas Al Sharif.”

At that moment, time stood still.

I had to tend to my sick child, to be present for him at that very moment. Yet the image that consumed my mind was of Anas taking off his press vest and celebrating the announcement of a ceasefire with his people back in January 2025.

“Now I can finally take off this helmet that has exhausted me throughout this period” Anas said live on Aljazeera, “and also this vest, which became a part of my body over this long time.”

Behind him, his people erupted in cheers, lifting Anas among them, applauding not only the work he had done, but the courage and devotion with which he had borne witness to their story and told the truth of their lives.

I often imagine that is where the story had ended. I wish that was the moment when the killing stopped, when the genocide reached its limits, and Anas could finally return home to his family, to put down his press vest, hold his children, and begin the long work of rebuilding alongside his people.

I wish Gaza had been given the chance to rebuild, and Anas the choice to continue telling our stories as the brave journalist he was.

However, I was teleported back to my bathroom, stoic. My husband called over to me, asking me what’s wrong. “Anas is dead,” and his face suddenly also became blank in expression. We spent the rest of the evening in utter silence.

That heartbreak echoed across the world, for every Palestinian watching the genocide of their people livestreamed, we witnessed the bravery, the best of us, within Anas. He stayed in the North when most evacuated, he documented using his cellphone camera, becoming a journalist overnight and then wearing a press vest reporting live for Aljazeera. Documentation, and becoming a witness for his people was his primary goal and objective, even if it felt that no one was watching.

So Israel punished him for it, and by extension the entire Palestinian people. “A terrorist is a terrorist”, they wrote in their press release confirming their targeting of him, “even if Aljazeera gave him a press badge.”

Killing Gaza’s journalists

Throughout the course of the genocide on Gaza, Israel murdered over 210 Palestinian journalists. In fact, in July alone, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate documented 108 attacks by Israeli occupation forces on journalists and media workers, 8 months after the October 2025 ceasefire announcement.

As a Palestinian journalist myself, living in Germany, I witness firsthand the dehumanization and trivialization of Palestinian journalists’ deaths, through the regurgitation of direct Israeli propaganda, the failure to stand by Palestinian colleagues, and the creation of narratives that ultimately serve to justify their deaths.

Take the example of the media giant Axel Springer’s largest German tabloid, BILD, that portrays Palestinian photojournalist, Anas Zayed Fteiha, as a Hamas propagandist. Their article, titled ‘This Gaza photographer stages Hamas propaganda,’ published 5 days before Anas’ murder, singles out Fteiha, alleging he fabricated images of starving Palestinians mere two weeks prior to the United Nations officially declaring a famine in Gaza.  

Or take another example, of a Die Welt journalist, Jan-Friedrich Funk, on air claiming that Palestinian journalist and public figure Saleh Al Jawfarawi, who was killed on 12 October 2025, by an Israeli-backed militia, was a crisis actor. He reported, as though fact, that Al Jawfarawi was a part of what Israeli media calls “Pallywood”: a derogatory term to imply Palestinians are faking their suffering for international sympathy.

“Mr Fafo’ is an actor” is the title of the video still up on their website. ‘Fafo’, is an acronym for “f*** around and find out.”

Hassan Eslaiah was killed on 13 May in an Israeli airstrike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, after Israel accused him of being involved with Hamas and participating in the 7 October attack. German public broadcaster Tagesschau also repeated Israel’s claim without critique that Eslaiah had “known about the attack plans before the invasion of Israel.”

Bearing witness

Palestinian journalists are a reflection of their people. They did not hide in fancy newsrooms, distanced from the realities they were reporting on. Journalists like Anas al-Sharif, Hassan Eslaiah, Hossam Shabat, Saleh al-Jafarawi, and the hundreds of others were killed because they dared to show the world what was happening in Gaza: the mass displacement, destruction, and killing of millions of Palestinians, while exposing Israel’s attempt to deceive the world.

They reported on what was happening to their own people, to their own families, friends, and communities, and they did so with extraordinary courage and professionalism. They should be remembered as people who risked everything to bear witness to the suffering of their people.

They were, and will remain, the bearers of truth.

I remained a journalist because of Anas. Documentation is incredibly important to the Palestinian tradition. We document not only because we want to tell the world what is happening, but also because we want to preserve an account of what happened to us, to our people, our families, our communities, and our homeland. We document so that our history cannot be erased, denied, or rewritten.

Anas knew he would be targeted. In fact, his last words he left the world instead became a manifesto for the fight for Palestinian liberation.

“I entrust you with Palestine. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. I urge you not to let 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.”

I learned from Anas, and from his final words, that I must not, and cannot, separate my search for truth from the struggle for the liberation of my people. He entrusted me, and all of us, with the responsibility to remain steadfast in our fight, which includes continuing to uncover the horrors of Israeli occupation, apartheid, and genocide, as well as international complicity in their crimes.

We are often told that, in order to remain level-headed, objective, and neutral, journalists must maintain distance from the people and events they cover. But Palestinian journalists have never had the luxury of such distance.

Anas never had the luxury of detachment. For Palestinian journalists, we are witnesses, and how we preserve memory is how we refuse to allow our people’s suffering to be erased or forgotten.

“Do not forget Gaza” Anas said. I won’t, we won’t.

Hebh Jamal is a Palestinian American journalist based in Germany. 

Follow Hebh on X and Instagram: @hebh_jamal

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.