Anas Al-Sharif became the face of the war in Gaza for millions. Then Israel killed him

This undated recent image, taken from video broadcast by the Qatari-based television station Al Jazeera, shows the network's Arabic-language Gaza correspondent, Anas al-Sharif, reporting on camera in Gaza. Al-Sharif and four other Al Jazeera staff members were killed by an Israeli drone strike on their tent in Gaza City shortly before midnight on Sunday. (Al Jazeera via AP)

As a ceasefire in Gaza took hold in January, Anas Al-Sharif began removing his protective gear live on television, piece by piece, while a jubilant crowd cheered, hoping the day marked the end of the suffering of 2 million Palestinians in the enclave.

Nearly seven months later, Israel killed the Al Jazeera journalist and four of his colleagues in a strike in Gaza City.

One of the most well-known Palestinian journalists in Gaza – and one of dozens to be killed by Israel during the war – Al-Sharif’s death has ignited international condemnation and calls for accountability.

The 28-year-old rose to prominence as the face of the Gaza story for millions while Israel has blocked international media outlets from accessing the territory. Little known before the war, he quickly turned into a household name in the Arab world for his daily coverage of the conflict and its humanitarian toll.

His reports provided first-hand accounts of critical moments in the conflict, including the short-lived ceasefires in the territory, the release of Israeli hostages and harrowing stories of the starvation that have shocked the world.

Al Jazeera recruited Al-Sharif in December 2023 after his social media footage of Israeli strikes in his hometown of Jabalya went viral. Then a professional cameraman, he was initially reluctant to appear on air but was persuaded by colleagues to front his reports, an experience he called “indescribable.”

“I had never even appeared on a local channel let alone an international one,” he was cited as saying in the Sotour media outlet in February. “The person who was happiest was my late father.” His father was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Jabalya shortly after Al-Sharif began appearing on Al Jazeera.

A father of two, he appeared on the channel nearly every day since he started his job.

“We (journalists) slept in hospitals, in streets, in vehicles, in ambulances, in displacement shelters, in warehouses, with displaced people. I slept in 30 to 40 different places,” he told the outlet.

After he took off his protective gear on air in January, crowds lifted him on their shoulders in celebration.

“I am taking off the helmet that tired me, and this armor that has become an extension of my body,” he said live on Al Jazeera at the time as he paid tribute to colleagues killed and injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza.

Al-Sharif’s reports attracted the attention of the Israeli military, which, he claimed, warned him to stop his work for Al Jazeera, a network that had already lost several staff members to Israeli actions in Gaza, including Ismail Al Ghoul, killed last year, and Hossam Shabat, killed in March.

“At the end, (the Israeli military) sent me voice notes on my WhatsApp number… an intelligence officer told me… ‘you have minutes to leave the location you are in, go to the south, and stop reporting for Al Jazeera’… I was reporting from a hospital live.”

“Minutes later, the room I was reporting from was struck,” he said.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Why now?

Israel first accused Al-Sharif of being linked to Hamas 10 months ago. Why it decided to target him now is unclear.

In a statement confirming his targeted killing, the IDF accused Al-Sharif of leading a Hamas cell in Gaza that orchestrated “rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF forces.”

In October 2024, the Israeli military published documents it claimed showed “unequivocal proof” of Al-Sharif’s ties to Hamas and named five other Al Jazeera journalists who it said were part of the militant group. An Israeli army spokesperson said in a video on X that Al-Sharif joined a Hamas battalion in 2013, and was injured in training in 2017, an accusation denied by the journalist himself and Irene Khan, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression.

“I reaffirm: I, Anas Al-Sharif, am a journalist with no political affiliations. My only mission is to report the truth from the ground – as it is, without bias,” he wrote last month. “At a time when a deadly famine is ravaging Gaza, speaking the truth has become, in the eyes of the occupation, a threat.”

Following the journalist’s killing, the IDF’s Arabic spokesperson published several pictures of Al-Sharif with Yahya Sinwar, the late Hamas leader who is believed to have masterminded the October 7, 2023 attack that left around 1,200 people in Israel dead and roughly 250 more taken hostage. Israel killed Sinwar in October 2024.

Al-Sharif was in a tent with other journalists near the entrance to the Al-Shifa Hospital when he was killed on Sunday, according to hospital director Dr. Mohammad Abu Salmiya.

The tent was marked with a ‘Press’ sign, Abu Salmiya told CNN. The strike killed at least seven people, Salmiya added.

Al Jazeera said correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and photojournalists Ibrahim Al Thaher and Moamen Aliwa were also killed in the strike, as well as Mohammed Noufal, another staff member.

‘Pattern of accusing journalists’

Al-Sharif’s killing prompted condemnations from rights groups and officials. The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was “appalled,” adding that Israel has “a longstanding, documented pattern of accusing journalists of being terrorists without providing any credible proof.”

The CPJ said 192 journalists have been killed since the beginning of the war nearly two years ago, adding: “184 of those journalists are Palestinians killed by Israel.”

Since the start of the war, Israel has not allowed international journalists to enter Gaza to report independently.

Just hours before the strike that killed Al-Sharif and his colleagues, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said foreign journalists would now be allowed into Gaza, but only with Israeli military approval and accompanied by them, the same embed policy that has been in place since the beginning of the war.

Al-Sharif was buried in Gaza on Monday in a funeral that attracted large crowds of Palestinian mourners.

Anticipating his own death, Al-Sharif had written a will that was released by his colleagues after he was killed.

“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… If I die, I die steadfast upon my principles,” he wrote.

“Do not forget Gaza … and do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.”

Mostafa Salem, CNN