Afrasianet - Karim Shaheen - Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif has dedicated his life to truth and dignity, and his death exposes Israel's impunity in Gaza.
The American magazine "New Lines" publishes an article about the assassination of Palestinian journalist in the Gaza Strip, Anas Al-Sharif, along with his journalistic staff, focusing on Israel's impunity for its crimes.
The following is the text of the article translated into Arabic:
Anas al-Sharif was a Palestinian journalist from Gaza. He was 28 years old, a father of two, and worked for Al Jazeera. On Sunday, he was assassinated by Israel.
These facts are indisputable. They are true. As real as the rays of the sun that penetrate your windows, as real as his children, as real as the pain of his family, as real as the destruction of his dreams. Real as the anger that burns in the heart with every Gaza disaster. As real as the torrent of souls fleeing from the emaciated bodies of Gaza's children, and those who have been burned in Israel's constant fire.
As a journalist, rooted in the prestigious Western tradition of the profession, let me list a few other facts:
Israel deliberately targeted Anas while he was staying in a tent with other Al Jazeera employees outside a hospital, killing him and his friends.
"Killing" is the word CPJ used to describe the attack. Israel killed reporter Mohammed Qureiqa, photojournalists Ibrahim Zaher, Momen Aliwa, and Mohammed Nofal, who is also a member of the press crew.
The Israeli army acknowledged this, describing Anas, one of the most famous faces who covered and witnessed the genocide in Gaza, as a Hamas "terrorist." However, the IDF's claim is not true. It is what we used to call a lie, a concept that has largely lost its meaning because we are drowning in lies.
CPJ has documented 186 deaths of journalists in the Gaza war. Among them, 178 Palestinians were killed by Israel.
Western politicians like to label violence that they have no intention of doing anything to stop as "meaningless." There was no sense in what Israel did. The Israeli army and its social media troll followers spent months demonizing and discrediting Anas, trying to justify his eventual assassination and discrediting him in his courageous reporting of Israel's starvation of Gaza. His last report was in a hospital in Gaza, standing, as usual, as a witness to the massacre, in front of the slender corpses of hungry children. The latest figures were reported as 217 deaths from starvation and malnutrition, including 100 children.
"This hospital receives children every day because of famine, malnutrition, lack of milk, and the spread of infections and diseases inside the Gaza Strip," Anas said at the time, as a emaciated infant writhed in the background.
Israel is feeling enormous diplomatic pressure because of its deliberate starvation of an entire Palestinian generation. Nor is it still suffering any real consequences for its methods of waging war. So it has killed one of the most famous faces who convey these atrocities to the world.
Israel's strategy seems to be that "keeping you is useless, and your destruction is not a loss."
I always return to the picture of Anas on social media, his hair styled, and a slight smile weighed down by the depths of the injustice he witnessed every day, as he carried his two children, with distorted ruins in the background, as if the bliss and joy of holding his two children while they were intertwined had lost every aspect of this collapsed world. A moment that embodies pure eternal love, which will continue to reverberate even after this disaster.
How could they kill him?
Of course they will. They don't care, even if the whole world is revolting because the children of Gaza are starving. Maybe they did it because the world was watching them, maybe as a show of impunity.
Even in the midst of Israel's biggest alleged diplomatic crisis, Israel has felt no remorse for exterminating an entire staff of journalists. No arms embargo, no sanctions, no trials, not even a cover for an internal investigation, so why don't they do it?
But the truth is that Anas Sharif lived. His life had meaning, dreams and value. Yes, his life was surrounded by tragedy, by a never-ending war. He knew the siege, the deprivation, the hunger, the massacres and the fires. But he also knew what it meant to kiss his daughter's cheek, to hold his son's hand, to live a life full of courage and honesty, to defend the oppressed and the marginalized, to tell their stories, to stand up to fear and destroy everything that was dear to him. What it meant to be a true journalist.
In a farewell letter published after his death, he wrote, on his instructions:
"I urge you not to be silenced by restrictions, and not by borders. Be bridges towards the liberation of the land and its people, so that the sun of dignity and freedom may shine on our plundered homeland. I entrust you with the care of my family. I bid you farewell to my beloved daughter Sham, the light of my eyes, whom I did not have the opportunity to see grow up as I dreamed. I bid you farewell to my dear son Salah, whom I wished to support and accompany throughout my life so that he would be able to carry my concern and continue my mission. Do not forget Gaza... And do not forget me from your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance."
He shouldn't have endured all this, or carried his weight on his shoulders, but he did. And we'll remember.
Source: New Lines magazine