Altermidya – People’s Alternative Media Network condemns in the strongest terms the killing of Anas al-Sharif, a respected Gaza correspondent of Al Jazeera, along with four other remaining Al Jazeera journalists still covering inside the besieged territory. Anas was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike on August 10, 2025.
The Israeli military has openly admitted to the attack but falsely claimed that he was a “Hamas leader”. This is an accusation they have hurled against him repeatedly without presenting a shred of evidence. Anas himself, his colleagues, and other independent media and institutions, had denied such links many times.
Evidently, his real “crime” in the eyes of the occupier was his dedication to documenting the truth from the ground, bearing witness to the horrible situation ordinary Palestinians face under siege. In recent weeks, Anas and a handful of remaining journalists on the ground exposed Israel’s deliberate starvation of Gaza’s population and denial of life-saving aid amid the threat of full-scale occupation.
The killing of Anas al-Sharif is not an isolated act but part of a systematic campaign to silence the press in Gaza. Since October 2023, over 200 journalists have been killed in Israeli attacks, many in targeted strikes on their homes, offices, or while clearly identified as members of the press. Alongside these killings is a relentless campaign of vilification: branding Palestinian journalists as “terrorists” simply being the world’s eyes and ears in Gaza.
Israel’s deliberate efforts to silence on-the-ground reporting include its ongoing refusal to allow other independent journalists and investigators into Gaza, sealing off the genocide from the scrutiny of the global public. This is not only an assault on individual journalists but on the very principle of press freedom and the people’s right to know.
As Filipino journalists, we recognize disturbing parallels between this repression and our own situation. In the Philippines, state forces and their mouthpieces systematically red-tag and malign independent media for reporting on human rights abuses, corruption, and the lived realities of marginalized communities. Harassment, threats, arrests, and even killings often follow these vilification campaigns.
While the scale of violence in Gaza is far greater, the underlying tactic is the same: silence truth-tellers, criminalize journalism, and control the narrative to shield perpetrators and those in power from accountability.
Altermidya stands in unwavering solidarity with Palestinian journalists and all independent journalists risking their lives to bring the world the truth in Gaza. We stand with the Palestinian people in their struggle for peace, dignity, and freedom. We demand an immediate end to the targeting of journalists, an independent investigation into their killings, and full, unfettered access for journalists in Gaza. In honoring the memory of Anas al-Sharif and all our fallen colleagues, we commit to amplifying the voices that oppressors seek to marginalize and silence, here and everywhere.
