Killing of Journalist Anas, 5 Others Part of Israel’s Systematic War on Truth: Palestine Embassy

New Delhi: The Embassy of the State of Palestine in India has released a position paper on the assassination of Al Jazeera journalist Anas al Sharif and his five colleagues.

The position paper, released on Tuesday, which details the entire incident, has termed the assassination of Anas al Sharif and his colleagues as “part of a systematic war on truth, aimed at erasing the voices that dare to document the brutal reality Israel seeks to hide from the world.”

The Palestine Embassy has refuted Israeli Army’s claim labelling Anas as a “terrorist” allegedly affiliated with Hamas.

‘The UN, Reporters Without Borders, the Foreign Press Association, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and major broadcasters, including the BBC have all stated that Israel has produced no credible evidence to support its claim,” says the position paper.

Read the full text below:

Issued by the Embassy of the State of Palestine to the Republic of India

Early morning of August 10, the Israeli occupation air force assassinated 28-year-old journalist Anas Alsharif, a father of two, along with five of his media colleagues. As in countless previous cases, Israel recycled its worn-out pretext: labelling him “a terrorist” allegedly affiliated with Hamas and also “he was a head of a cell in the rocket brigade” as Israel army claim.

The messianic U.S. Ambassador to Israel, in contrary to all the diplomatic rules, even pointed to a photo of Alsharif with a Hamas leader “where there are photos where this alleged journalist is hanging the head of Hamas and smiling for the cameras”, as though this alone could serve as a death sentence. Let us examine the facts that dismantle Israel’s falsification of the global consensus:

1. From the first hour of the war, Al-Sharif was a visible voice, walking Gaza’s shattered streets day and night, documenting the televised genocide for 671 days in plain sight of Israel’s military, yet only now does Israel “discover” he was supposedly a terrorist, claiming he led a rocket brigade that, if true, would mean they knowingly let an easily reachable “ripe fruit” roam free while putting their own citizens in danger

2. Israel killed five other journalists alongside Al-Sharif in his tent. If, for the sake of argument, Israel’s claim that he was a terrorist were true, why not carry out one of its so-called “surgical strikes” while he reported openly on the streets? Were the other five journalists used by Al-Sharif as “human shields” pretext Israel routinely uses to justify killing tens of thousands of women and children? Or should they simply be written off as “collateral damage”?

3. The bloody history of Zionist silencing of truth dates back at least to 1924, when they assassinated the Palestinian Jewish journalist Jacob Israel De Haan after seeing him as a political threat undermining their plans to establish a Jewish state. On March 13, 2002, Raffaele Ciriello, an Italian freelance photojournalist working for Corriere della Sera, was shot dead by Israeli army gunfire while covering their military incursion into Ramallah.

Let us also remember the deliberate assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Christian Palestinian journalist slain by an Israeli sniper on May 11, 2022.

4. According to the mouthpieces of the Zionist movement, Al-Sharif’s alleged ‘glorification’ of the October 7 attack is enough to issue a death sentence. If that logic holds, then millions of people around the world, from every faith, including Jewish individuals, should line up to prepare their coffins, for they too have shown support or sympathy.

5. If shaking hands with an alleged “enemy” is enough to justify assassination, then by the same logic U.K former prime minister Tony Blair, who has met Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal multiple times in the past two years, should also be a target. The same would apply to the group of Orthodox Jews from Neturei Karta who visited Gaza and met with Hamas leaders on July 16, 2009, just to name few. Alsharif and his colleagues are among 237 journalists deliberately targeted by Israel. Were all the other 236 also “terrorists”?

6. If shaking hands with a Hamas leader warrants assassination, then thousands of Gazans who have relatives in Hamas, greeted them, shake hands with them, traded with them, or even swum in the sea behind them would be marked for death. By this logic, Gaza’s entire population is a “legitimate” target.

7. Israel bans foreign media from entering Gaza that left the world with only two narratives, Israel’s official version, or tightly stage-managed tours of the October 7 sites for foreign journalists. This narrative control is especially alarming given that Israel stands accused of genocide. Thousands of journalists and influencers are invited to view the October 7 sites, just 2.5 miles from Gaza’s ruins. If Israel is not committing war crimes, why not let those same visitors cross the fence and see the other side?

8. With Israelis offering contradictory claims about the reality on the ground, the only honest way to verify the truth is to allow independent media access to Gaza, something Israel continues to refuse. This was precisely Piers Morgan’s argument in recent months, when he asked: “Why should we believe you?”

The UN, Reporters Without Borders, the Foreign Press Association, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and major broadcasters, including the BBC have all stated that Israel has produced no credible evidence to support its claim. In truth, the assassination of Anas Alsharif is not an isolated act, but part of a systematic war on truth, aimed at erasing the voices that dare to document the brutal reality Israel seeks to hide from the world.