Israel plans final liquidation of Gaza, murdering final witnesses

Anas al-Sharif was murdered because Israel wants to silence all witnesses to the final stage of the Gaza genocide

The Israeli state is liquidating what remains of Gaza. As they do so, they are exterminating the last prominent journalists who are alive in Gaza, in an attempt to silence the last remaining witnesses to Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Gaza, of course, has already been reduced to apocalyptic ruin. Satellite data a month ago found that 89% of the buildings in Rafah, 84% of the buildings in northern Gaza, and 78% of buildings in Gaza City have been completely or partially destroyed. Overall, they found that 70% of structures in Gaza had been severely damaged, leaving them uninhabitable, with a quarter overall being completely destroyed.

They also noted that the real level of destruction could be even higher, because the satellite imagery couldn’t detect damage to the walls of a building unless the roof had collapsed.

What Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has now announced is that the Israeli army will fully occupy Gaza. To be clear, Gaza has always been under Israeli occupation. In 2005, the Israeli army disengaged from Gaza so that the state could focus on what they saw as the jewel in the crown, the West Bank, to de facto annex it and expand illegal settlements there instead. But it was still, as per the United Nations, legally regarded as under occupation, because Israel controlled access by land, air and sea, decided everything that got in and out, controlled the civil registry, even controlled the electromagnetic sphere, thus controlling Gaza’s means of communication. There were repeated Israeli military onslaughts on Gaza between 2005 and 2023.

This time, full scale land invasion of Gaza began at the end of October 2023.

Israeli leaders and officials made clear, both publicly and privately, that would destroy Gaza. In the latest example, the wife of the former Israeli chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, told a podcast that on 7th October, he told her: “Gaza will be destroyed”

Last week, Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan to “fully occupy” Gaza. Such plans are even opposed by Israel’s military, not because they care about the Palestinian people - they have enthusiastically committed war crimes agains tthem - but because, to quote the Israeli chief of staff Eyal Zamir:

“occupying the Strip would drag Israel into a black hole — taking responsibility for two million Palestinians, requiring a yearslong clearing operation, exposing soldiers to guerrilla warfare and, most dangerously, jeopardizing the hostages.”

There’s also a crisis of Israeli recruitment going on. Israel’s national broadcaster, Kan, reports that only 60% of Israeli soldiers are showing up for reserve duty.

Three quarters of Gaza is already under direct Israeli military control. What Israel is now proposing is to drive out the Palestinian civilians sheltering in Gaza City, what Netanyahu calls the “central camps”, and Muwasi. That represents about 1.5 million people. Netanyahu claims that those people will be allowed "to safely leave the combat areas to designated safe zones”. There are no safe zones in Gaza. What are called safe zones have been repeatedly attacked.

Right now, Gaza is in the grip of a famine which has been deliberately created by Israel. The UN-backed food security experts declared two weeks ago that the "worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out".

Even the German state, which is one of Israel’s most committed allies, has stated the obvious truth - its Chancellor Friedrich Merz says of support for Israel’s latest plan: “Where are these people supposed to go? We can’t do that, we won’t do that, and I will not do that.”

A senior United Nations official says that the proposed Israeli onslaught "will likely trigger another calamity in Gaza, reverberating across the region and causing further forced displacement, killings and destruction, compounding the unbearable suffering of the population”,

What Israel is planning in practise is not a secret. There is no military purpose for what Israel is doing. Don’t take my word for it. Yoav Gallant is the former defence minister of Israel, who - like Netanyahu - is subject to an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Last November - so that is 10 months ago - he said: “There’s nothing left in Gaza to do. The major achievements have been achieved. I fear we are staying there just because there is a desire to be there.”

In May, Netanyahu declared that Israel is “destroying more and more houses [in Gaza and Palestinians accordingly have nowhere to return.”

Israel have declared that they will drive Gaza’s survivors into what they call a ‘humanitarian city’, which is Orwellian terminology for a concentration camp. Even Ehud Olmert, former Israeli prime minister calls it a concentration camp.

Once there, they will be banned from leaving. Anyone who refuses to be driven into the camp will be branded a legitimate target and exterminated. And once there, Israel plans to begin deporting those survivors, so that no living Palestinians remain in Gaza. Exterminated or deported. And the plan of Israeli ministers is to then colonise Gaza.

If the Western media was doing its job, it would foreground these basic facts when discussing Israel’s onslaught.

They choose not to.

Someone who warned the world about Israel’s plan to liquidate all that remains of Gaza, which has already suffered one of the great crimes of our age, was al-Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif. He was one of the last remaining Palestinian journalists alive in Gaza, and one of the most prominent people in Gaza itself.

In these last 21 months, Israel has perpetrated the worst murder of journalists in human history. Anas has watched after colleague after colleague, friend after friend, loved one after loved one, was murdered by the Israeli military.

And he said:

To Whom It May Concern,

The occupation is now openly threatening a full-scale invasion of Gaza.

For 22 months, the city has been bleeding under relentless bombardment from land, sea, and air.

Tens of thousands have been killed, and hundreds of thousands wounded.

If this madness does not end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.

Please share this message and tag everyone who has the power to help end this massacre. Silence is complicity.

Moments later, he was killed by an Israeli air strike on a journalists’ tent outside al Shifa hospital, alongside four of his al-Jazeera colleagues, and two other civilians

As it has done through, Israel falsely smeared its Anas al-Sharif as a terrorist.

When the Israeli state put a target on his back, Anas al-Sharif knew that he could be killed at any moment. And so he penned these last words in the event of his murder:

This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. First, peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings.

Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabalia refugee camp. My hope was that Allah would extend my life so I could return with my family and loved ones to our original town of occupied Asqalan (Al-Majdal). But Allah’s will came first, and His decree is final. 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.

I entrust you with Palestine—the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls.

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.

I entrust you with my dear son Salah, whom I had wished to support and accompany through life until he grew strong enough to carry my burden and continue the mission.

I entrust you with my beloved mother, whose blessed prayers brought me to where I am, whose supplications were my fortress and whose light guided my path. I pray that Allah grants her strength and rewards her on my behalf with the best of rewards.

I also entrust you with my lifelong companion, my beloved wife, Umm Salah (Bayan), from whom the war separated me for many long days and months. Yet she remained faithful to our bond, steadfast as the trunk of an olive tree that does not bend—patient, trusting in Allah, and carrying the responsibility in my absence with all her strength and faith.

I urge you to stand by them, to be their support after Allah Almighty. If I die, I die steadfast upon my principles. I testify before Allah that I am content with His decree, certain of meeting Him, and assured that what is with Allah is better and everlasting.

O Allah, accept me among the martyrs, forgive my past and future sins, and make my blood a light that illuminates the path of freedom for my people and my family. Forgive me if I have fallen short, and pray for me with mercy, for I kept my promise and never changed or betrayed it.

Do not forget Gaza… And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.

The Palestinian journalists of Gaza, the most courageous journalists who ever lived, reported the truth about what Israel was doing to the Palestinian people. They did so whilst suffering unimaginable horrors - relentless mass slaughter and destruction, hunger - and they did it knowing every moment could be their last, and the last of their families, too.

If they kept speaking out whilst suffering an apocalyptic nightmare and fearing for their lives, whilst documenting the extermination of their own people, then the least we can do is to keep speaking out, not least if we are citizens of countries which armed and facilitated this crime of historic proportions.

That’s how we honour the legacy of the likes of Anas al-Sharif, by being more determined, more courageous, more vocal as we fight Israel’s Western facilitated genocide of the Palestinian people.

NB: I’m currently finishing my book, ‘THE FALL OF THE WEST’, so apologies for less frequent posting: normal service will resume when it’s done.