“I’ve lived ache in all its particulars and I’ve tasted ache and loss repeatedly. Regardless of this, I’ve by no means hesitated to convey the reality as it’s, with out distortion or falsification. Could God be a witness towards those that remained silent and accepted our killing, and towards those that choked our breath and whose hearts weren’t moved by the scattered stays of our kids and girls, and who did nothing to cease the bloodbath our folks have confronted for greater than a yr and a half.”
That is what Anas al-Sharif wrote in his “will” ready 4 months earlier than his martyrdom. It was posted on his social media account a number of hours after an Israeli strike killed him and journalists Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa at a media tent close to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza Metropolis.
Anas al-Sharif was one in every of Gaza’s heroes. He was – certainly – the journalist closest to all our hearts.
Folks right here in Gaza usually hate the media. They see journalists both exaggerate and painting us as superhumans, capable of face up to relentless bombing, the deprivation of meals and water, and the lack of family members; or demonise us as “terrorists”, justifying the killing of our households and the destruction of our houses.
Anas was completely different; he didn’t distort the reality. He was one in every of us: raised in our refugee camps, struggling with us beneath bombs and amid hunger, mourning his family members, refusing to depart his neighborhood. He stayed behind in Gaza, steadfast like an olive tree, a residing instance of a real Palestinian.
Anas began reporting for Al Jazeera at the beginning of the genocide, however he rapidly grew to become a well-known face. He and Ismail al-Ghoul didn’t cease broadcasting from northern Gaza even once they confronted fixed threats. Their heat friendship, and the humorous and unhappy moments they shared, made us really feel nearer to them.
After the martyrdom of Ismail final yr – might God have mercy on him – we felt we had misplaced an expensive brother, and have been left solely with Anas.
Final month, when Anas broke down on digicam whereas reporting on the hunger, folks told him: “Preserve going, Anas, don’t cease, you might be our voice.”
And certainly, he was our voice. We frequently imagined that when the tip of the genocide comes, we are going to hear it introduced by Anas al-Sharif’s voice. There was no journalist on the planet extra deserving of declaring that second than Anas.
For me, Anas was greater than only a reporter. He was an inspiration. He was the rationale I picked up my pen each time I misplaced hope that something would change due to what I write. I noticed Anas reporting tirelessly – hungry or full, in summer season or winter, threatened with demise or surrounded by cameras.
His persistence satisfied me I used to be incorrect to consider that documenting the genocide was not shifting anybody exterior. Anas made me consider our story can attain the place we can’t, crossing seas and oceans to each a part of the world. And his resilience, working day by day, each hour, pressured me to hope … hope that if we stored talking, somebody may pay attention.
Anas is now gone, and I really feel I used to be incorrect to hope, incorrect to consider within the justice of this world, watching him enchantment – with eyes overflowing with tears – to a worldwide conscience that proved to be low and selective.
They didn’t deserve your tears, Anas! They didn’t deserve your self-sacrifice so they might know our story. They don’t hear as a result of they refuse to.
You raised your voice, Anas, however you have been calling out to these with out conscience.
I wanted the struggle had ended earlier than you have been martyred so I may go discover you in Gaza and let you know that our voices had succeeded, that they had reached to the surface world and pushed change. I might have informed you that you simply have been my function mannequin and your work stored me going. And if at that second, you had smiled and known as me your colleague, I might have cried with pleasure.
Your protection ended, Anas, however the genocidal struggle didn’t. Right this moment, we glance helplessly on the vile occupation boasting about concentrating on you earlier than all the world – the identical world you pleaded with till your final breath. Nations all over the world stay silent; for them, financial offers and political pursuits are value greater than human lives.
But, the occupation won’t silence us, Anas. It needs us to die with no voice as a result of our voice, whereas we groan in ache and cry from loss, disturbs it, interferes with its genocidal drive.
Gaza won’t give delivery to a different such as you, Anas, nor somebody like author and poet Refaat Alareer, nor like hospital director Marwan al-Sultan. The occupation is concentrating on the most effective and brightest, those that have raised their voices and proven the world what Palestinians of dignity and integrity can do.
However we won’t keep silent after these violent murders. Even when we all know the world won’t pay attention, we are going to maintain talking – as a result of it’s our destiny and responsibility. We, the residing Palestinians who survived this genocide, have to hold the legacy of our martyrs.
For me, meaning talking, writing, and exposing the crimes of this bloody and brutal occupation … till the day you dreamed of, Anas – the day this genocide, probably the most horrific in trendy historical past, ends. The day you come to your ancestral house in al-Majdal and I return to my village, Yibna.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
