Israel kills six Palestinian journalists including Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammad Qreiqe

Yet another appalling massacre was committed in the late hours of Sunday, August 10, when Israeli warplanes targeted a journalist’s tent near Al-Shifa Hospital, in Western Gaza city, killing six journalists, five of whom worked with Al Jazeera network and one with the Palestinian news platform Sahat.

The murdered journalists were identified as:

• Al-Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif (28)
• Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqe (33)
• Al Jazeera camera operators Ibrahim Zaher (25), Mohammad Noufal (29), and Moamen Aliwa (23)
• Sahat journalist Mohammed Al-Khalidi (37)

Israel has killed 238 journalists, including 11 working with Al Jazeera during the 22-month genocide

The massacre raised the tally of Al Jazeera journalists, who have been killed since the beginning of Israel’s 22-month genocidal aggression on the Gaza strip to 11, and the death toll of all journalists killed by Israel in the besieged enclave during the same period to 238.

Al-Sharif and Qreiqe; Gaza’s ineffaceable voices of truth

For almost two years, Anas al-Sharif and Mohammad Qreiqe have been the faces of Al Jazeera’s coverage of the most documented genocide in history, during which Israel has employed all means of mass killing.

The two journalists continued reporting from the ground, despite having become a major target of the Israeli occupation, like scores of other influential Palestinian journalists reporting from Gaza.

Al-Sharif’s name was at the top of a list that the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) published last October, alleging that six Palestinian journalists were combatants affiliated with Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Neither this allegation, which posed an imminent threat to al-Sharif’s life, nor the longstanding starvation that exhausted his thin body, dissuaded him from documenting the daily crimes committed by the IOF in Gaza.

A video of Anas circulated last July, capturing one of his most sentimental moments, as he began to cry after describing how an old lady fainted in front of him due to being starved.

“Keep going Mr. Anas, you are our voice,” a man said to the young correspondent as he paused, trying to hold back his tears.

Mourning his two colleagues, al-Sharif and Qreiqe, shortly after their assassination was confirmed, Qatar-based Palestinian journalist Tamer Al-Mishal said during a live-stream on Al Jazeera’s TV channel:

“With all sadness and grief, and with all pride despite the distress, we mourn our two martyred fellow journalists, who represented the face of Gaza, Anas al-Sharif and Mohammad Qreiqe.”

“We are still receiving unconfirmed news about the death of other colleagues,” Al-Mishal added about the rest of the slain correspondents working with Al Jazeera.

“We mourn Anas al-Sharif, who became a prominent Palestinian journalist in spite of his young age. I affirm that he has garnered journalistic prominence because Anas was Gaza’s face. Gaza is Anas, Anas is Gaza,” Al-Mishal stated, lamenting his colleague’s death.

“This journalist, who remained patient and steadfast despite being targeted and subjected to incitement, and although his house was shelled, his father was martyred, and he had endured a torrent of instigation, which we witnessed for months, he remained patient, steadfast and professional while reporting on the ground,” Al-Mishal continued.

“Mohammad Qreiqe, who carried the banner after our martyred colleague Ismaeil al-Ghoul, was indeed such a professional and humane journalist. He was the best successor for Ismail al-Ghoul. He remained steadfast in Gaza,” he emphasized.

“This was Mohammad Qreiqe of Shujaya neighborhood, who despite the destruction of his house and everything that he endured, remained – hand in hand with Anas al-Sharif- reporting on the ground with a high level of professionality, credibility and humanity,” Al-Mishal asserted.

“Displacement is like the separation of the soul from the body,” Qreiqe said before his death

Al Jazeera quoted the last-recorded statements of Qreiqe before his death, in which he spoke about the anguish of displacement.

“Actually, no one among us has not experienced displacement. Everyone in the Gaza Strip, particularly the people who stayed in the north, has experienced displacement at least 15 times,” Qreiqe said.

“Therefore, people are afraid to be displaced again. The problem is that the displacement journey, or even the idea of being displaced from an area to another is exhausting, and distressing. It really equals the separation of the soul from the body,” the assassinated journalist added.

“I entrust you with Palestine,” al-Sharif said in his last will

The last will of Anas al-Sharif was posted on his official Facebook page hours after his assassination was confirmed, seemingly at his request to a confidant before his death.

“This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice,” al-Sharif declared, opening his last testament.

“My hope was that Allah would extend my life so I could return with my family and loved ones to our original town of occupied Asqalan (Al-Majdal). But Allah’s will came first, and his decree is final. 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 – so that Allah may bear witness against those who stayed silent, those who accepted our killing, those who choked our breath, and whose hearts were unmoved by the scattered remains of our children and women, doing nothing to stop the massacre that our people have faced for more than a year and a half,” the beloved journalist said in his final message.” 

In another part of his statement, Anas called on people of conscience, “I entrust you with Palestine – the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls.”