Israel Marked Al Jazeera Reporter Anas Al-Sharif For Death A Year Ago, Sharif Was Palestinian Journalist Known For Reporting
New Delhi : Anas al-Sharif, an Al Jazeera journalist killed in an Israeli airstrike on Sunday, was accused by Israel of being a Hamas terrorist almost a year ago. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) had in October 2024 released documents they claimed proved his affiliation with Hamas.
“Struck: Hamas terrorist Anas al-Sharif, who posed as an Al Jazeera journalist Al-Sharif was the head of a Hamas terrorist cell and advanced rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and IDF troops,” the IDF posted on X, adding, “A press badge isn’t a shield for terrorism.” That Anas al-Sharif was part of a terrorist cell and was behind rocket attacks was trashed by Al Jazeera.
The order to kill Anas al-Sharif, one of Gaza’s bravest journalists, along with his colleagues, is a desperate attempt to silence voices ahead of the occupation of Gaza,” the Qatar-based media outlet said. A few minutes before his death, al-Sharif shared on X the details of the situation around him.
“Breaking: Intense, concentrated Israeli bombardment using ‘fire belts’ is hitting the eastern and southern areas of Gaza City,” he wrote. In a final message, which Al Jazeera said had been written on April 6 and which was posted to al-Sharif’s X account after his death, the reporter said that he had “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”.
Al-Sharif was a Palestinian journalist and videographer for Al Jazeera Arabic, widely recognised for his reporting from northern Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war. Born in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, he graduated from Al-Aqsa University with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication, specialising in radio and television. He began his career volunteering at the Al-Shamal Media Network before joining Al Jazeera as a northern Gaza correspondent.
From October 2023, Al-Sharif became one of the most visible faces reporting on the war in Gaza, refusing to leave from the north despite repeated Israeli orders and direct threats to his life. He continued daily coverage through airstrikes, massacres, and displacement, often working under extreme danger and chronic shortages of basic supplies.
Al-Sharif received phone calls from the Israeli military telling him to leave northern Gaza in November 2023. The following month, his father was killed in an Israeli airstrike on their family home in Jabalia.
Due to poor health, his father was unable to evacuate with the rest of their family. Al-Sharif described the experience as both “cruel” and “painful”, yet said it strengthened his resolve to continue telling the stories of Gaza’s suffering. Just last month, he expressed to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) his fear of being “bombed and martyred at any moment,” after an Israeli military spokesperson publicly accused him of being a member of Hamas.