Palestine Letter: ‘Without us, everyone would die in silence’

Lately, I have written almost all of my stories with tears in my eyes. When a journalist writes a story about a person they have never met, there is a certain level of detachment. It’s completely different when were write stories about our friends and colleagues. 

In the wake of the assassination of Anas Al-Sharif, Muhammad Qreiqa, and four other journalists in Gaza on August 10, every colleague of mine in Gaza now considers themselves as “martyrs on a waiting list.” They’re just waiting for their time to come. I am about to talk to one of them in a minute. I am left wondering whether I might find them on the news later.

Israel is no longer hiding the fact that it’s killing journalists. It openly boasts about it by claiming that they are tied to Hamas or other armed groups — all 238 journalists who have been killed over the course of this genocide.

By now, Israel has made this into a routine. It starts by inciting against them in the media, as an army of Hasbarists, trolls, and bots generate content about the next journalist on the hit list, creating a narrative about how they are fighters “disguised as journalists.” They start to manufacture the consent for their slaughter. In the case of Anas, the incitement and fabrications started months before his death.

The same accusations were pointed at my dear colleague Hassan Eslayeh, who Israel tried to kill twice and succeeded the second time. He was killed in an airstrike while receiving treatment at Nasser Hospital’s burn unit for wounds sustained during the first assassination attempt.

Of course, the justifications the army provides — they were secret militants — are improbable fabrications that fall apart from even cursory scrutiny. Because these journalists are the only people bearing witness to this genocide, they are Israel’s main target in the information war. The world now knows Israel as it never did, and this is only due to the courage of Gaza’s journalists. That is why Israel called them several times with threats to stop their coverage before ultimately putting them on their public hit lists.  

Anas said that the Israeli army called him 3 times in the past, ordering him to stop his coverage. He refused. They bombed his home and called again, and he refused. They killed his father and called again with the same demands. He refused. Then they killed him. 

Why would they have bothered to call him so many times if he were actually the leader of a “cell,” as they claim? The fact that the media even lends an ounce of credulity to such naked falsifications goes to show how much our colleagues have been dehumanized. 

Now, after the killing of Anas, the Israeli media has launched a new incitement against another colleague, Muhammad al-Sharif — Anas’s cousin and an Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent in Gaza. He has helped us in covering many stories throughout the genocide. Muhammad was my eyes inside Kamal Adwan Hospital when the Israeli army invaded it. He sent us vital testimony from the doctors and hospital staff as they were besieged.

I called him immediately when I saw his photo on the Israeli Telegram channel, with a bullseye superimposed on his face.

“My reaction was normal when I saw my photo and the incitement against me,” Muhammad told me. It was hard to contain my shock at how he talked about it in such a matter-of-fact way. “Journalists in the field today are only defending their cause by telling their stories. We aren’t doing anything wrong, and our work is clear to the world. Why would I be afraid if I’m not doing anything wrong?”

Muhammad assured me that these incitements would not deter him from continuing to do his duty.

“I will not stop covering the news. These threats do not scare us,” he said. “We are on this path, and we know it’s dangerous, but our duty and our message must be heard.” 

Muhammad was married three months ago. He is concerned about his family despite their support in deciding to continue fulfilling his duty.

“The incitement affects my life, my family’s life, and my wife’s life. But it will not deter me from performing my duties and my job,” he added. “Everyone is living through this war now. My family always encourages me to continue on the path of journalism and to play my role. We are the only voice for the people in Gaza. Without us, everyone would die in silence, without the world knowing what happened here.”

Before this genocide, I used to stroll all of the Gaza Strip in one day if I needed to, going from one place to another to collect the testimonies for my stories. Some interviews were possible on the phone, but I always preferred to go for a personal interview, because I could convey not only the words, but the feelings, body language, facial expressions, and subtle shifts in tone of voice. 

During the genocide, personal interviews in Gaza were not possible for me or any other journalist. Moving from one city to the next in the Strip was like a death mission. Tanks hid behind sand dunes, snipers were perched atop buildings, drones and the warplanes occupied the sky, and all of them targeted anything that moved. 

So we adapted. We collaborated with one another by setting up journalists’ groups and chats, and started sending each other testimonies on the ground from where every person was located. A journalist in Khan Younis would share their information with journalists in the north, and vice versa.

The genocide brought us closer together, and in that, it created a collective with a single, unified mission: to tell the truth about what’s happening in Gaza. From that collective, I got to know Hassan Eslayeh, Fatima Hassouna, Muhammad Qreiqe, and so many others who were killed by the Israeli army. Some of them were killed with their families in their homes. Others were killed in targeted assassinations. 

And now Israel is going after all of them, killing them one by one, for no other sin than daring to expose its crimes to the world.