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Ali Ghanim is the pseudonym of a Palestinian journalist living in the U.S.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
I first met<\/span> Anas Al-Sharif in in November 2023 at the Al-Shifa Medical Complex, which was the biggest complex in the war-torn Gaza City. Israel had just ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza, a first step toward depopulating the area during an earlier stage of the genocide.<\/p>\n Anas was lying on the floor in front of the emergency room with tears in his eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are you so sad?\u201d I asked him sardonically. \u201cWe\u2019re still at the beginning of this movie!\u201d<\/p>\n He laughed. Anas felt the weight of the war heavily, but he was still from Gaza, and we have our trademarked Ghazawi way of lighthearted humor in the face the most unfathomable loss and unbearably dark days.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Above all, Israel fears the people who tell the world about what is happening in Gaza.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re right,\u201d he responded. \u201cThe climax, the real tragedy, the end of the story, are still on the way.\u201d<\/p>\n For Anas, the end would come too soon.<\/p>\n On Monday, Anas, 28, was targeted, along with three other Al Jazeera journalists<\/a>, in an Israeli strike on a tent complex around Al-Shifa Hospital.<\/p>\n The Israeli government mocked him in death \u2014 even accusing him of being a Hamas operative. It\u2019s their way of belittling Anas because he did something so small as tell our story.<\/p>\n Israel fears so many simple facets of Palestinian life, a child wearing a keffiyeh or a mother telling her son to fight for Palestine. Above all, though, Israel fears the people who tell the world about what is happening in Gaza \u2014 the war, the genocide, the famine. Anas made it a mission to tell these stories, our stories, all over the world. And people listened.<\/p>\n For me, though, Anas wasn\u2019t just a star journalist. He shepherded me through tough times, encouraged me to do reporting, and shared his knowledge freely. Along with my father, Anas\u2019s strength was the biggest inspiration to my life. It helped keep me going. He was a mentor and, moreover, a friend.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the hospital<\/span> that day we met, we chatted for a couple hours.<\/p>\n We both grew up in Jabaliya refugee camp. He knew some of my relatives.<\/p>\n It was Israel\u2019s occupation that inspired him to become a journalist. Anas told me once about how, when he was still young, one of his relatives had been arrested. When the relative returned from Israeli prisons<\/a>, Anas listened intently as the man narrated tales from behind bars for his family. Those were the kinds of stories \u2014 of injustice<\/a>, of torture<\/a>, of indignity \u2014 that needed to be told to the wider world, Anas realized.<\/p>\n Palestinian communities are famously tight-knit, but it was especially true in our camp, where people felt each other\u2019s needs and wants intensely. In the camp, people supported each other at any cost. Anas was known for being close to the children in his community, connecting with them and instilling pride in them by teaching them about Palestine.<\/p>\n The spirit of telling people\u2019s stories while also supporting them as human beings was ever present in his work. Anas could be seen walking through a hospital at work, microphone in hand, but pausing to express sympathy for mothers who had lost their sons.<\/p>\n We would both come to know tremendous loss in this war. Anas\u2019s father was killed by Israel in an airstrike a month after our meeting. And my family home was hit by an airstrike on our densely populated neighborhood shortly before we encountered each other; my mother had been killed, and my sister landed in the intensive care unit of Al-Shifa Hospital, part of the reason I was there that day.<\/p>\n We were also, for the meantime, stuck. Israel was besieging the hospital. It was an affront to international norms, and Israel justified its attack with bogus propaganda<\/a> about militants hiding out in tunnels beneath the complex<\/a>.<\/p>\n We spent a lot of time together during the offensive and formed a bond that would continue until the day Anas died.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n