The Wild Reed: Anas al-Sharif, 1996-2025

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Anas al-Sharif, 1996-2025

Global condemnation is mounting over the assassination [by Israel] of one of the most prominent journalists in Gaza, Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, along with four of his colleagues at the network and a sixth journalist, freelance reporter Mohammed al-Khalidi.

The killing of al-Sharif and his colleagues is “really murder,” says Irene Khan, U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression. “It is not killing in the context of war. It is a deliberate strategy to stop independent voices reporting.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is calling for an independent investigation of the journalists who were killed in the targeted Israeli strike.

On Monday, crowds of mourners gathered for a funeral procession for al-Sharif and his colleagues, marching from Al-Shifa Hospital to Sheikh Radwan Cemetery in central Gaza, carrying the journalists’ bodies wrapped in white sheets. A dark blue flak press jacket and a Palestinian flag were placed on al-Sharif’s remains. People embraced as they decried Israel’s relentless targeting of journalists in Gaza.

Meanwhile, at rallies and vigils worldwide, people are demanding accountability for the attack on journalists, including in Tunisia, Belfast, Dublin, Berlin, London, Oslo, Stockholm and Washington, D.C.

– Amy Goodman
Excerpted from “Israel Has 'Deliberate Strategy’
of Killing Palestinian Journalists Like Anas al-Sharif”
Democracy Now!
August 12, 2025

The Committee to Protect Journalists is appalled by Israel’s killing in Gaza on Sunday of four Al Jazeera staff – correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal – as well as freelance journalists Moamen Aliwa and Mohammad al-Khaldi.

The six journalists were killed by a targeted strike on a tent used by media near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

In a statement announcing the killing of al-Sharif, Israel’s military accused the journalist of heading a Hamas cell and of “advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and [Israeli] troops.”

Israel has a longstanding, documented pattern of accusing journalists of being terrorists without providing any credible proof.

“Israel is murdering the messengers,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “Israel wiped out an entire news crew. It has made no claims that any of the other journalists were terrorists. That’s murder. Plain and simple.”

“It is no coincidence that the smears against al-Sharif – who has reported night and day for Al Jazeera since the start of the war – surfaced every time he reported on a major development in the war, most recently the starvation brought about by Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into the territory,” Qudah said, adding that the famine has been independently corroborated by aid workers and medics, despite Israel’s refusal to let foreign reporters into Gaza.

Al-Sharif had been one of Al Jazeera’s best-known reporters in Gaza since October 2023, and one of several journalists whom Israel had previously alleged were members of Hamas, without providing evidence.

. . . The August 10 attack raises the number of Al Jazeera staff journalists killed by Israel in Gaza during the war to 10, in addition to eight journalists who freelanced with the media organization, according to CPJ data.

“If Israel can kill the most prominent Gazan journalist, then it can kill anyone. The world needs to see these deadly attacks on journalists inside Gaza, as well as its censorship of journalists in Israel and the West Bank, for what they are: a deliberate and systematic attempt to cover up Israel’s actions,” said Qudah. “Israel has killed more journalists in the 22 months since the start of the war than were killed worldwide in the preceding three years. Deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime under international law. This massacre must end.”

– Committee to Protect Journalists
Excerpted from “Israel kills Al Jazeera Journalists
in Targeted Gaza City Airstrike”
August 10, 2025

So many of us feel angry, outraged, powerless and ashamed. We are confronted by a stream of accusations from the IDF that seek to dehumanize our Palestinian colleagues, that seek to justify their killings, and the nature of the carefully calibrated language that we are using in our stories, I understand to many, just feels so detached and so not proportional to the agony and outrage of the moment.

And behind the scenes, many of us continue to push and press and sign letters and write petitions and do meetings, and none of it seems to make a damn bit of difference.

So just a reminder that journalism is not a crime and that the targeting of journalists is a war crime.

– Clarissa Ward
via social media
August 11, 2025

Yesterday Israel assassinated six reporters, among them “the voice of Gaza,” Al Jazeera reporter Anas Al-Sharif. The Israeli government admitted to targeting the journalists. 237 journalists have been killed by Israel in Gaza since the Israeli genocide campaign began that has taken the lives of nearly 62,000 people and is now using the cruelest tactic of all – starving children.

As a journalist, I am appalled and saddened and struggling to understand how society blithely accepts this atrocity. As a woman and mother, I marvel at the strength of Palestinian women to carry on caring in an uncaring and murderous world. As a Mexican citizen, I call on our government to do more – join arms and energy embargoes against Israel and provide proof of the cancellation of contracts, including Pegasus spyware used against journalists. As a U.S. citizen, I call on citizens there to demand an end to taxpayer dollars murdering families, because there’s no point on calling on the government to do anything, as Trump looks on with glee, imagining the hotels he would build on the graves of the children he helped kill.

– Laura Carlsen
via social media
August 11, 2025

I have spent 35 years as a journalist covering conflict – a so-called war reporter – with a focus on war crimes and human rights violations.

Today, I lead The Reckoning Project, a war crimes unit that brings together investigative journalists, lawyers, and digital scientists to hold perpetrators accountable.

Over the course of reporting 18 wars, I have been shot at, sniped, kidnapped, threatened, nearly raped, and had guns – including RPGs wielded by child soldiers – pointed at me. I have lost many beloved colleagues, from Sarajevo to Sierra Leone, Iraq to Syria. I have witnessed more suffering than I thought possible.

And yet, without exaggeration, I can say that I have never seen anything like what is happening in Gaza – nor the near-universal complicity in allowing it to continue.

Since October 8th, 2023, the international community has sat back and allowed Israel to act with absolute impunity.

They kill children.

They kill doctors.

They kill nurses.

They kill teachers.

They kill academics.

And they kill my colleagues – journalists.

Yesterday’s attack on an entire Al Jazeera team was not a mistake. It was targeted. Journalists are civilians, protected under international law – but that protection has been ignored.

It feels almost banal to repeat it: this is not about antisemitism, nor is it blood libel. This is about Israel’s clear intent to eradicate Palestinians – and the world watching it happen.

This must stop. Now.

– Janine Di Giovanni
via social media
August 11, 2025

The Wild Reed

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Anas al-Sharif, 1996-2025

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