i write so silence doesn't prevail

carrying the voice of Anas Al-Sharif beyond the rubble

what do you think about as you fall asleep at night?

or are your nights as restless as mine?

personally, I've been dreaming up hypothetical scenarios of sitting across from someone in gaza and feeling so inadequate as I look them in the eyes and say i've been protesting, writing, posting, boycotting, praying, begging, donating, and crying. my whole body shakes with what there seems to be no word in the english language for anymore. 'hopeless' doesn't hold a candle to the depth of uselessness I feel.

just this afternoon, I made the connection to why the martyrdom of Anas Al-Sharif and the entire Al Jazeera team struck a nerve so heavy i've cried a river. inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un. images of him with his press vest and helmet flash through my mind and it takes everything to not give into despair. Anas and I were both born in 1996, we're both 28-year-old journalists, who started our journeys with a vow to tell the truth and expose the world in the process. Anas will be 28 forever and I don't know how to name the guilt I feel for knowing it's mere geographical luck separating our circumstances. there are NO Al Jazeera journalists left in gaza. the are amongst the rubble and the stars, who knows if their bodies were even left intact.

in his will, prepared a few months before he was assassinated while working in a media tent near Al Shifa hospital, always centering telling the lived reality of suffering, he wrote:

"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—so that Allah may bear witness against those who stayed silent, those who accepted our killing, those who choked our breath, and whose hearts were unmoved by the scattered remains of our children and women, doing nothing to stop the massacre that our people have faced for more than a year and a half."

if Anas could read these words from beyond the grave, maybe through the gates of jannah, i'd say the world never deserved him in the first place. Anas, and every journalist who continues to brace the likelihood of losing their own life to be the voice of palestine, are heroes. I wish they didn't have to be. I wish Anas lived long enough to be reunited with his wife and child, but I make dua they reunite in heaven. israel has killed over 230 media workers in the past two years alone. last month, I published the myth of a free press on the role that western media's blatant lies and complicity have played in the genocide.

every time the media lies, a neighborhood in gaza dies.

at the press conference in front of the KHOU office of houston, texas - pigs told us our megaphone was a decibel too loud and "we've been warned." we're no stranger to the role cops play in suppressing the resistance, they are active and complicit agents. imagine people are being intentionally starved to death and you are using your free will to tell a group of heartbroken activists and community members that their disdain for a genocide is too loud. the cops, zionists, and especially western journalists who haven't used their voice for truth telling have blood on their hands.

we, as people on the outside watching the IOF commit the most sinister atrocities, have formed parasocial relationships with the press in gaza because that's the only way of knowing what's actually happening hour by hour, sans the lies told by the media. we've relied on the heroes and prayed for their safety. we hold our breath each time we click on a news headline. meanwhile, the new york times is busy conjuring up the newest way to dehumanize palestinians and tip the words in israel's favor.

the haunting memory of Anas taking off his press vest and helmet at the "ceasefire" announcement many months ago is etched in my brain. the relief to even for mere seconds comprehend that the genocide of your people has ended, that you can now lay the dead to rest with dignity and begin to rebuild? and let me perfectly clear when I say that palestine will be free - i'm heartbroken that Anas won't be around to see it. it should rattle all of our consciousness that we continue to live alongside a genocide.

the intention behind targeting gaza's most beloved and world renowned journalist is clear - israel doesn't want us to know nor see what's about to happen. plans for total colonization of gaza have already been announced and now israel is washing its hands of any possibility of being stopped, assassinating the bridge between gaza and the rest of the world.

these words may just enter an echo chamber of the people who feel this pain deep in their bones. we wake up, contend with where reality sits, and repeat. it is not my intention to end on a note of pessimism, sharing this with you all if proof I haven't given up. I will never give up and nor should you - not until the fresh scent of jasmine flows through a free palestine and zionists no longer inhabit this planet. I wish i had it in me tonight to inspire hope for collective action, but my eyes are heavy with grief and i am angry. so angry. I'll leave you with this.

"I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland. I entrust you to take care of my family. I entrust you with my beloved daughter Sham, the light of my eyes, whom I never got the chance to watch grow up as I had dreamed."

his life wasn't taken in vain. he’s entrusted us to be his voice. I pay homage to the martyred journalists by not being silenced.

until next time,

rimsha