Anas Al-Sharif grew up in the heart of Gaza, where days are measured by the number of endless battles. He was not born with a camera in his hands, but he came into life amid billowing smoke, scattered ruins, and the sounds of the radio repeating the names of the martyrs at the break of dawn each new day.

Anas Al-Sharif: more than a reporter

He grew up in the Jabalia refugee camp, aware that every house had a tragic story of bombing and that every street carried the memory of those who had lost their lives. He studied radio and television, but his path did not lead him to quiet offices, but to muddy streets, where he had to convey the sounds of explosions and tears to the world, whatever the cost.

Anas Al-Sharif was not just a reporter conveying cold news, but a messenger of truth from Gaza to the world. He knew that the camera could be a reason for him to be targeted, but he believed that the lens was the most powerful weapon to break the wall of silence. He climbed rooftops, searched for internet signals in the corners of hospitals, and cut through destroyed streets to film hungry children and mothers searching for bread amid the rubble.

The occupation did not hide its hatred for him, as he faced continuous incitement and smear campaigns, and accusations were levelled against him to justify his assassination, until the tragic Sunday when occupation aircraft bombed the journalists’ tent near Al-Shifa Hospital, killing Anas and his colleagues, leaving the cameras hanging in the void and silence.

Hours before his martyrdom, he spoke on screen about children slowly dying of hunger. He did not realize that his next image would be on the news, but this time without sound, with a headline that summed it all up: “Anas Al-Sharif martyred.”

A witness to genocide

With his execution at the hands of Israel, Gaza has lost more than a journalist; it has lost a witness who carried its pain on his shoulders, and a bridge connecting its alleys to the eyes of the world. His reports remain in the archives, but they are not mere media material; they are fragments of the spirit of a city that continues to struggle for life.

Anas Al-Sharif became a martyr, but he remained a witness to the genocide, the hunger of children, mothers searching through rubble for bread crumbs, displaced people walking on muddy roads under rain and shelling, the bodies of innocents in cold hospital corridors, and the sound of houses collapsing stone by stone, amid a global silence that ignores it all as if it were a passing scene.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alaa Shamali

This post was originally published on Canary.