“I HAVE lived pain in all its details and I have tasted pain and loss repeatedly. Despite this, I never hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or misrepresentation, hoping that God would witness those who remained silent, those who accepted our killing, and those who suffocated our very breaths.” Journalist Anas al-Sharif’s final message was posted on his X account within hours of the targeted Israeli strike that killed him and three of his colleagues in Gaza on Sunday.

The voice of Anas al-Sharif, the Al Jazeera correspondent whose live coverage had informed the world about the ongoing Israeli genocide, has been silenced. But his last message should be enough to prick the conscience of those who have remained quiet, silently accepting the mass killing of Gaza’s hapless people.

Al-Sharif was yet another journalist killed in the line of duty. According to Al Jazeera, shortly before he was killed, he wrote on X that “Israel had launched intense, concentrated bombardment — also known as ‘fire belts’ — on the eastern and southern parts of Gaza City”. He knew he was being targeted but never backed out of his responsibility. Reportedly, he told a colleague: “I will not leave Gaza except to the sky! I will not leave Gaza even if I am killed.”

Al-Sharif had been reporting from Gaza since the Israeli invasion of October 2023, and was on Israel’s hit list. While acknowledging his killing, the Israeli military accused the journalist of being a Hamas operative — not the first time Israel has labelled slain journalists as such.

Al-Sharif had been reporting from Gaza since the invasion and knew he was on Israel’s hit list.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 186 journalists have been killed since Israel commenced its military strikes on Gaza after the October 2023 Hamas attack. It has been described as “the deadliest period for journalists since [CPJ] began recording such data in 1992”. “Israel is killing the messengers,” said the CPJ. The Watson School of International and Public Affairs’ Costs of War project recently revealed that the Gaza conflict “has killed more journalists than the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War … the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post 9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined”.

Israel has banned journalists from reporting its genocidal war in Gaza. Most of the reports in the Western media on the Gaza war have come through Israeli military sources, which largely cover up Israel’s war crimes. Al-Sharif’s ‘crime’ was that he had recently been reporting on the starvation caused by Israel’s refusal to allow food and other humanitarian supplies into the devastated territory — for several months now. He reported how Israeli soldiers killed people waiting desperately for food. Some two million people are on the brink of starvation. Hundreds of children have perished because of hunger. In April, António Guterres warned of a catastrophic situation in Gaza. “Gaza is a killing field, and civilians are in an endless death loop,” he asserted.

His comments followed the appeal of the heads of six UN agencies to the world community to take quick action to ensure that food and aid reached the Palestinians. But the international community appears helpless before the impunity of the Zionist state. The scale of killing and devastation seen in Gaza has few precedents in recent times. It could not have happened without the tacit support of the US and some other Western countries. In the words of al-Sharif: “Not even the mangled bodies of our children and women moved their hearts or stopped the massacre that our people have been subjected to for over a year and a half.”

The apathy of the Arab nations, in particular, towards the genocide is no less than abetment of the Zionists’ crime. They are keeping quiet even after the murder of al-Sharif and other journalists, who put their lives in jeopardy to inform the world about Israel’s crimes. They are sitting on the fence even as tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children are killed by Israel.

Israel is intensifying its military operation in Gaza as its far-right government recently announced plans to permanently take over the enclave, thus pushing the entire population of the occupied Strip into a concentration camp. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a press briefing that Israel had “no choice” but to proceed because Hamas had not surrendered. It’s just an excuse for the Zionist state that wants to annex the occupied territory. It may also be the reason why, as Al Jazeera pointed out, the latest killings of journalists by Israeli forces were “a desperate attempt to silence voices in anticipation of the occupation of Gaza”.

Netanyahu’s plan to militarily occupy Gaza will have serious consequences for global peace. According to the UN chief, it “marks a dangerous escalation and risks deepening the already catastrophic consequences for millions of Pales­tinians”. The planned move has raised eyebrows among certain Western countries (including some that had backed Israel’s military offensive). The foreign ministers of Australia, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the UK condemned Israel’s plan in a joint statement, saying it risked “violating international humanitarian law”.

But the US is silent on Israel’s expansionist plan. Many analysts believe that the plan has the tacit approval of President Donald Trump, who, earlier this year, had suggested the complete evacuation of the population of Gaza to turn the territory into a “Riviera”. The US has also vetoed every resolution in the UN Security Council for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. No wonder Netanyahu has nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Anas al-Sharif’s murder and last message have heightened public anger across the globe against Israel. But will the international community act now to stop Israel’s genocidal war?

The writer is an author and journalist.
zhussain100@yahoo.com
X: @hidhussain

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2025