Front Burner - The killing of Gaza’s journalists

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has become the deadliest conflict for journalists in recent history. Among those killed was Anas Al-Sharif — one of the last remaining reporters in Northern Gaza, and one of the most recognizable media voices in the strip.In July, the Committee to Protect Journalists said that the public smear campaign against him, led by the Israeli military, was part of an effort to manufacture consent to kill him. Just weeks later, this past Sunday, he and three colleagues were killed in a targeted Israeli strike near a Gaza City hospital. The Israeli military has publicly admitted to the killing, calling Anas an operative connected to Hamas’ military wing: a charge that those who know him, along with organizations like the United Nations, deny.Sharif Kouddous is the Middle East editor at Dropsite News, and a longtime reporter on and in the region. He joins us today to talk about the killing of Anas Al-Sharif, who refused to leave Gaza, his home, despite months of threats against his life, and the cost of journalism in Gaza.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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This is a CBC podcast. Hi, I'm Ali Jains, in for Jamie Poisson. At the end of July, a UN expert published a statement denouncing the Israeli army's threats on the life of a young Palestinian man, who was one of the few remaining journalists in northern Gaza. The Committee to Protect Journalists referred to these threats on his life as an effort to manufacture consent to kill him. His name was Anas al-Sharif, and he'd been reporting in the Gaza Strip, his home, since the start of this military campaign. He was one of Al Jazeera's most prominent journalist there. On account of the threats to his life, our producer Matthew Amha had been talking with Anas about appearing on this podcast to talk about what it was like to be one of the most precarious working reporters in the world today.

Late Sunday, Anas was killed in a targeted Israeli strike on a tent near. medical facility in Gaza City. He was killed alongside three members of his team. Seven people total were killed in the strike, including two other freelance journalists. Not long before his death, Anas uploaded a video on X of a series of nearby Israeli airstrikes.

Anas's work kept him away from his wife, his four-year-old daughter, Sham, and his one-year-old son, Sala, for long stretches of time. You might have seen the video of him reuniting with his daughter a few months before he was killed. His friends, as well as his employer, are referring to his killing as an assassination. Israel has publicly admitted to killing him.

The IDF described Anas as a, quote, terrorist posing as a journalist for Al Jazeera, alleging that he was the head of a Hamas terrorist cell. Anas, Al Jazeera, and organizations like the UN have dismissed. those accusations as baseless. This has been the deadliest conflict for journalists in recent history. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 192 journalists and media workers have been killed since the campaign in Gaza began. Al Jazeera puts that number closer to 270.

Today, we wanted to center the experiences, conditions, and ultimate cost of journalism in the Gaza Strip. And to center the work of Anas al-Sharif himself, who declared that despite options to the contrary, he would never leave Gaza, no matter how dangerous his reporting became. Sharif Abdel-Khoudouz is the Middle East editor at DropSight News and a longtime reporter on and in the region. And he joins us today.

Hi, Sharif, thanks so much for being here. Thank you for having me. So I want to talk to you today about Gaza journalist Anas Al-Sharif. Al Jazeera's 28-year-old star reporter, one of their few remaining journalists in northern Gaza. He was born in Gaza's Jabilia refugee camp in 1996. And can you just, you know, talk to me about Anas, what you knew about him, and your own reaction to the news of his killing? Anas Shadif was, had emerged as probably the most recognized Palestinian journalist that was still alive and reporting from Gaza. His face was unknown across the Arab world and really internationally from his continuous coverage over the past 22 months.

He was a near constant presence on television and online. He reported and endured this brutal onslaught on Gaza for nearly two years. supporting almost every day on airstrikes, on shelling, on massacres, on displacement, on famine, on death. And in many ways, I think a lot of people thought because of his stature and because of his prominence that he couldn't be killed, that Israel wouldn't dare. And nevertheless, he was killed. And I think it's important to remember, this was a massacre. of six journalists. Ennis is by far the most well known, and he's the one that Israel said

targeted in its assassination of him. But this strike on Sunday, in a media tent outside of Shifa hospital in Gaza City, killed six journalists. I think their names are important. Mohamed Kareka, Ibrahim Zahar, Umin Alewa, and Mohamed Nufal, and another journalist from the media atlid Sahat, Mohamed al-Khaladi. And Enos was threatened directly by the Israeli military from the very beginning of the war. So back in November of 2023, he was receiving calls from Israeli military officers on his phone, telling him to cease coverage, telling him to leave the north. This is a period where hundreds of thousands were forcibly displaced from the north,

to the south under displacement orders by Israel. He was one of a handful of journalists that remained in the north throughout. He would receive WhatsApp messages with location pins of his location from the Israeli military as a threat, letting them know they knew exactly where he was. He refused to stop his coverage. They responded by bombing his house in Jabalya and killing his 90-year-old father. Nevertheless, he continued covering, and throughout all of this, he is seeing some of the most horrific violence of this century unfold before him. He's always on the scene reporting what's happening.

He's burying his best friends, his journalist colleagues, people like Ismael al-Gul, Hussam Shabbat, and despite him being openly threatened, openly threatened by the Israeli military, Israel clearly felt that it could kill him without having any consequences for it, that they could do it with impunity because they'd killed over 200 journalists before, and nothing really changed. There are words, some words of condemnation when they kill journalists, but that's about it. The weapons keep coming, the money keeps coming, the support keeps coming, and to be frank, the media coverage of the conflict, it's not even a conflict, it's been classified as a genocide, and the media coverage of the killing of journalists helps enable this impunity to continue.

And, you know, just as recently as two weeks ago, he did a report about the widening famine. in Gaza, where he broke down on air. And the response by the Israeli military was to taunt him in a video by the Israeli military spokesperson and threaten him and saying basically that they were going to get him. He wrote in a post online, and I'll quote from it, he said, after I reported live on civilians collapsing from hunger, I was directly targeted with public incitement by the army spokesperson. This is an attempt to silence us. And to cover up a genocide unfolding in real time. I call on international officials, human rights defenders, and global media to speak out and share this message. Your voice can help stop the targeting of journalists and protect

the truth. And he went on to characterize Israel's threats as silence or death. And he vowed not to be silent. And they killed him. In some ways, Anas's young life kind of seems to chart the modern history of the Palestinian-Israeli relationship, at least over these past few decades. He was three years old when the second Intifada started. He was 10 when the Israeli blockade began in Gaza. He was 17 during the 2014 Gaza War, 20 at the start of the Great March of Return protests in 2018, which just briefly, for our listeners, they were these weekly demonstrations near the Gaza-Israel border to demand an end to the blockade and the right of return for refugees. And of course, he's now dead at 28 following two years of Israel's military campaign in Gaza.

And, you know, this was really the story of his life. And so, like, given that life experience, what do you think it was that would have called someone, like, Anas, to want to dedicate his life, to telling the stories of those in Gaza? You know, I think he really believed in the power of journalism, in the power of the image. in the power of the word, in exposing what is happening from the target end of the gun. You know, he told me as much, I interviewed him in September. And he sent, he responded with kind of a 10-minute voice note on WhatsApp. And part of one of the questions I asked him was, why did you keep doing this? And I'll quote to you what he said, because you're asking what drove him to become a journalist or to continue journalism.

And this is what he said. It is the duty of the world to see and witness what we are documenting and what we are reporting. Maybe the world won't act. Maybe the world won't help us. But there might be a motive to stop this war. Every time I document a massacre or event or bombing, I think that may be through this bombing or this image. that the war could stop and this war could end. This drives us to continue in our coverage to our last breath.

And he did just that. He continued to his last breath. He also had heroes to look up to. There are legends of reporters in Gaza who have covered all those wars previously that he grew up with. And there was recently a photo published of him as a young boy, I think, during the 2008-2009, war, as a journalist in a press flag jacket is talking and he's looking up at him. So, you know, I think he really believed in the power of journalism when it is done correctly and when it is, it does have the power to stop.

But I think, I don't think any of us quite imagined that journalists could be killed with such impunity for so long in this way. Guess who just bundled their home in auto with Desjardin insurance? Well, look at you, all grown up and saving money. Yes, I am. Mom told you to do it, didn't she? Yes, she did. Get insurance that's really big on care.

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Buy your next car today with Car Gurus and make sure your big deal is the best deal at Car Gurus.ca.cair-Gurus.ca.cairuos.ca. He had written this statement to be published in the event of his death. this was posted on his social media pages about an hour after he died and I just want to read a few excerpts of that statement it said in part if these words reach you know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabalya refugee camp may Allah 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. You know, looking at his life at the many tens of thousands, just like him that have been killed, how do those words strike you today? I mean, every time I read them or I hear them read, I'm on the verge of tears. this is a 28-year-old who knew he would most probably be killed because he was being openly threatened and because the world was doing nothing to protect him. And so he penned these words and he's saying very important things.

I mean, he also said in that letter he reminds people. He said, I wish I could return with my family and loved ones. to our original town of occupied Ascalan, which is Al-Majdal, reminding people that most, I think, 75% of Palestinians in Gaza are not from Gaza. They're refugees, and they want to return to their homes. And, yeah, to think that someone in their 20s is writing something, knowing that they're going to be assassinated and that this should be read out, and that he's saying, I entrust you with Palestine, don't look away, don't forget Gaza.

It's deeply moving, it's heart-wrenching, and it's also a source of shame, I think, for all of us, that this is being allowed to happen. And we can talk about this later, but the media coverage in many Western media institutions of an as killing and the five other journalists who died alongside him, I think has been shameful for the most part. And it is exactly that type of coverage that allows this wanton killing of journalists and the continued onslaught on Gaza to continue. Yeah, I do want to get into that Western media coverage in a few moments here. Now, I'll mention first, I mean, we, we, we, should mention the fact that the Israeli military had been referring to Anas as a member of Hamas's military wing for some time. So I just wanted to go through some of these allegations that the IDF has made and to get your take on them.

Firstly, the IDF has alleged that Anas was the head of a Hamas terrorist cell that they say targeted Israeli civilians with rockets. They've posted some screenshots of some lines from electronic spreadsheets that they say, are the lists of Hamas operatives and that include his name, but it's not clear like where these spread, you know, what these spreadsheets are, what the actual evidence is behind them. And I'll note that these allegations have been refuted by Al Jazeera, also refuted by Anna's himself. And they've been called baseless by journalism organizations. The UN expert also described them as a, quote, blatant attempt to endanger his life and silence his reporting. A couple of other things. Firstly, the IDF's Arabic spokesperson recently published some photos of Anas with the late Hamas leader,

Yahia Sinwar, who's believed to have masterminded the October 7th attack. You know, when you take all of this together, like what are your takeaways? Like, what would you say about these allegations by the IDF? Well, there's a lot to unpack there. But first of all, as you listed, there's one party claiming that he was a militant. with in Hamas, that's Israel, the party that killed him. International press watchdog groups like CPJ, UN experts, who are, you know, we're talking about allegedly neutral observers

are disputing these claims and saying they're unsubstantiated. Okay, so that's one. A photo of him with Yahya Sinwar, so what? I can show you many photos of Israeli journalists standing alongside Benjamin Netanyahu. Benjamin Netanyahu, there's an arrest warrant for him by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Does that mean that it's legitimate to go kill those journalists that stood alongside him smiling? I mean, these things are preposterous, and when you flip them, as I just did and you put it in this other context, it's absurd. It's absurd what's being said. And also, the allegations are coming from the Israeli

military that has shown us time and time again that it lies, that it fabricates. They also accused Anas's friend, also in Al Jazeera journalist, Ismail Al-Ghul, who they killed in an airstrike in July of 2024 that decapitated him. they accused him of being a Hamas militant of getting a Hamas Qasem which is the military wing of Hamas of getting a Qassam military ranking in 2007 Ismail Al-Gul would have been 10 years old at the time

that's how absurd the claim is they've put out documents after they killed Hamza D' D'htoog, the son of We'a'u'u'u who was Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief before he was injured and left Gaza they killed Hamzad D'htoah in an airstrike in January 2004. After they killed him, first they said it was a mistake. Then they admitted to killing him and said he was in fact a militant with Islamic jihad. And they put up this document that was so

blatantly fabricated that was immediately refuted by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Where is the outrage? There should be outrage. And Western media outlets can show outrage when Evan Gershkevich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, was wrongfully imprisoned by Russia, there was no checking of the charges against him, whether he was a spy, let's independently verify. No, immediately, all Western media institutions in no uncertain terms said this is a sham trial,

these are fabricated charges, as they were, as they should be called out. When Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist, was lured into a Saudi consulate in Istanbul and killed, there was no hemming and hawing over whether he was a spy or endangering Saudi's national security and let's look into these charges. Of course not because they're absurd charges. But this way around, Israel is given all of this rope.

And in the coverage of Ennis' killing, it's reflected. Reuters in 2024, one of people, Pulitzer Prize for photography. It submitted several photos, I think six photos. One of those photo submissions is by Anna Sashirif. It's a photo of the crater from a massive airstrike in Jabalia, a very powerful and horrific photo. He was part of their Pulitzer Prize winning submission. Reuters headline of the killing of Ennis Shedif was the headlines Israel killed Al Jazeer journalist, it says, was Hamas leader. And then it's front loads in the lead Israel's claim.

It then goes down later to eventually quote Jazeera's denial, CPJ's denial, the UN Special Rapporteur's denial, but it's putting it in a framework that is kind of like he said she said. And I've said this before, but there's an old story about how to do journalism. If you're sitting in a room

and two people are arguing about the weather, and one person is saying it's raining outside and the other person says it's not, the job of the journalist is not to print those two statements. The job of the journalist is to look out the window and then expose the one that's lying. And that's what's happening. This is not journalism, it's stenography.

They're just printing both statements and allowing this killing to continue. You know, on that note, I mean, Western press obviously makes a lot about our pursuit of truth, our role in the democratic process. You know, the Washington Post has this democracy dies in darkness campaign. And that's always kind of the way that we like describe what we do even when we fall short. But like just to put a couple more headlines to you on top of that Reuters one, here in Canada, the National Post ran with a headline about his killing. IDF kills Hamas terror cell leader posing as Al Jazeera journalist.

I'll note they've now updated it after a lot of backlash. Germany's billed newspaper ran a headline reading, terrorist disguised as journalist killed in Gaza. I mean, talk to me more, you know, you've been talking about this quite a bit, but just talk to me more about what you make of the way that Western media has responded to the killing of our Palestinian colleagues throughout this whole military campaign. I am still somehow shocked by it, even though I shouldn't be because it's been almost two years. It's not only the killing of journalists in Gaza, it's the coverage of Gaza itself. You know, the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., which is a very, you know, august organization, said it was troubled and saddened by an associative killing and called for a thorough and transparent examination of the circumstances surrounding his death.

That means absolutely nothing. What investigation is needed, Israel has admitted to killing him. They admitted to bombing him. They've been threatening him for months. they won't even put a statement, a clear statement of condemnation. And at this point, condemnation is not enough, because Israel clearly doesn't care about condemnation. There has to be some form of action. I don't know what that action should be.

Maybe there should be a disclaimer every time the Israeli military is quoted. Maybe there should be some disclaimer saying that they have a policy of killing journalists in Gaza. The thing that troubles me is that most of these press organizations are not operating in hostile media environments. Like, you know, where I'm from Egypt, it's very difficult to do free reporting because there's heavy censorship and you can be imprisoned. They're not being forced to do this. So why are they doing it? And the only thing that I can sort of see is that for most of large, corporate legacy media institutions.

I'll talk about the United States. Their span of kind of coverage spans the degree of debate in Washington, spans establishment orthodoxy. So if that debate is vigorous, you'll get kind of vigorous coverage of everything. So for example, if they're covering reproductive rights or gun rights or LGBTQ plus rights, these are things that there's a big span of debate in Washington

so the coverage reflects that but there is a consensus in Washington mostly for the most part it's changing slightly but there is a consensus supporting Israel and so the coverage

reflects that also I think a lot of journalists in these institutions pride themselves on being quote unquote objective they look down on a lot of independent

media outlets saying that they're activist journalists. I'm not sure what that means, but I know they mean it as a slur, that they're somehow biased in their coverage. But I can't think of more bias that has like swallowed establishment orthodoxy, that they can't

see it anymore. It's like what water is to fish. And the rhetorical acrobatics they have to do sometimes when they're reporting on Gaza is absurd. Some of the headlines, there was one in the New York Times, early on in the war, that I saved because I couldn't believe it. They had bombed the Jebelia refugee camp and killed dozens of civilians.

And it was, the headline was, explosion, Gazan Say, was airstrike, kills many in Gaza neighborhood. I mean, the rhetorical gymnastics to come up with that, when the headline is simply, Israel bombs refugee camp in Gaza, killing dozens. So, I, you know, I don't know why this continues. I honestly think they're losing a lot of credibility because of this coverage. There is anger against many large media outlets in the United States for this continued coverage, not just of the assassination of journalists, but of Gaza in general. There are protests outside the New York Times.

I think people are turning away because it's so blatantly. in favor of one side and is such a double standard when you compare it to their coverage of other wars. You reported extensively on the murder of Shereen Abuakle. was a Palestinian-American journalist who worked for Al Jazeera, and one of the most prominent reporters in the Arab world, she was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper while reporting in the West Bank. The Israeli government initially claimed

that she may have been killed by a Palestinian, and this eventually there was like a number of investigations, including forensic investigations, that showed that that was not the case. Your work was about the killing itself, but also about the denialism, that followed. And I wanted to just put a quote to you that I saw today from Rayad Faki, who manages Al Jazeera's Arabic language channel. He said that had Israel been held accountable

for Shereen's assassination, it would not have dared to kill 200 journalists in Gaza. Yeah, I think, you know, you bring up a good point by bringing up Shirena Bokle. She was extremely, you know, much more than Anna Sashidiv, a well-known, prominent, famous journalist in the Arab world. She had been covering Palestine since she started working in Tazeera in the 90s, but she started covering really the second of the father since 2000. People knew her. So if someone like that can, and she was killed in broad daylight, wearing her full press gear, her flag jacket, helmet,

you know, with press emblazoned across the front of the flag jacket, walking slowly up a street in Janine. There were no clashes in the area at the time. Her killing is caught on video. There's eyewitnesses everywhere. And still, no one has held to account. She also had American citizenship, and so the U.S. government is supposed to advocate for justice for her.

And they didn't do that either. And as you mentioned, it's a good example of how Israel lies. In the beginning, they put out a video claiming that a Palestinian gunman killed her, you know, like an errant bullet. This was very easily debunked, first by the Israeli human rights group, Batsalam, and then by multiple media organizations. Then, under a lot of pressure, because there were a lot of investigations showing that the bullet most likely came from an Israeli soldier, a sniper, they finally admitted that they likely killed her, but that it was a mistake and that she was caught in Crossfire. That claim of crossfire contradicts video evidence and eyewitness testimony, and yet the U.S. government adopted that narrative in its final report, and so no one was held accountable.

And yes, I think that if someone of that stature with such clear evidence that she was targeted can be killed without any accountability, or consequences that certainly paved the way for this mass slaughter of journalists in Gaza. You know, in that case, there was kind of relatively good coverage, I think, by Western media institutions of her killing. CNN did a good investigation, the Associated Press, the New York Times, then the UN did one in forensic architecture. But the U.S. government didn't. And, you know, The Biden administration, at the White House correspondence dinner, Biden mentioned Evan Gershkevich, the Walterie Journal reporter who was imprisoned by Russia. He mentioned Austin Tice, the American journalist who has been disappeared in Syria for many years.

He didn't mention Shirena Bochle. He met with the parents of both of those journalists. He didn't meet with the family of Shedina Boeachle. Why? she's also an American citizen because she was killed by an ally that's the only reason one can think so yeah I think

Shadin is not forgotten by any means and and the impunity with which Israel is allowed to act just fuels their ability to continue this kind of impunity and slaughter

you know the the conditions and the outcomes of certain conflicts can kind of create the conditions for the next one. And I'm wondering how you think we might see what's happening in Gaza spill out into future wars or inform future campaigns of violence. This killing of journalists in Gaza is not just a danger to Palestinian journalists or even Arab journalists. It's a danger to journalists everywhere across the world. The next time a military

targets, openly targets a journalist in another conflict, how can anyone point the finger at them? You know, if Russia decides to kill a journalist or Germany decides to kill a journalist in some conflict, you can't say anything because Israel was allowed to do this. So I think it has set such a dangerous precedent that will reverberate for a very long time. I don't think we're going to know what the effect is.

the level of destruction in Gaza, the complete destruction of Palestinian society in Gaza, the repeated targeting of hospitals, the repeated targeting of schools, the blowing up of every single university. So when you have these things allowed to continue to happen and backed by the most powerful country in the world, powerful countries, you know, it's backed by the United States, it's also backed by Europe. There's more rhetoric coming out of Europe. But there's very little change in policy. They still sell and buy weapons with Israel. They're still Israel's biggest trading partner.

So if there's no actual consequences, it'll be allowed to continue. And many people speak of how this marks the end of the post-World War II liberal international order, the order of human rights and international kind of the United Nations. This whole system that was built. after World War II to prevent things like genocide from happening. The system was not perfect. It has been chipped away for many years. It often served the powerful, especially after 9-11.

You know, we saw the United States, open Guantanamo Bay, conduct torture, invade countries without consequence. I don't think anyone, you know, people aren't naive. They realize it wasn't a perfect system. But it has been so completely blown apart now by this unfolding genocide that is not being stopped and is being actively supported that, yeah, who knows what's coming next? It has, as the head of Amnist International told me in an interview, they have opened the doors to hell. All right. Cherief, thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you very much.

All right. That is all for today. I'm Allie Jains. Thanks so much for listening to Frontburner, and we'll talk to you tomorrow.