The war on truth: How Gaza’s journalists are being systematically silenced

Yuval Abraham, an investigative Israeli journalist, disclosed that the Israeli army assassinated Anas al-Sharif, a journalist for Al Jazeera in Gaza, as part of an organized policy aimed at granting “legitimacy” to the killing of Palestinian journalists.

Abraham revealed that after the attacks of October 7, 2023, the Israeli military intelligence unit known as “AMAN” formed a team called the “Legitimization Unit” tasked with justifying the army’s actions in Gaza. The mission of this team includes collecting information to justify the army’s measures, such as accusing Hamas of failed missile launches or using civilians as human shields.

According to the report, the main goal of this unit was to identify Gaza-based journalists and present them in the media as secret Hamas members, thus making attacks against them appear justified. Abraham said, “Finding even one journalist as a secret member legitimizes killing all other journalists.”

He emphasized that the Israeli army has officially admitted that the recent attack targeted Anas al-Sharif—a journalist who, over the past two years, had courageously and accurately documented scenes of genocide in Gaza.

Abraham also criticized Israeli media for echoing the army’s narrative, stating: “The army claims that al-Sharif joined Hamas in 2013 at the age of 17. Even if this claim were true, his assassination is still unjustifiable, because by that logic, many Israeli journalists who served in the army should also be targeted.”

The Israeli journalist concluded that the real reason for killing Anas al-Sharif was his professional work as a journalist, and the documents presented are merely a pretext to cover up this crime. He also pointed out that preventing international media from entering Gaza is part of the same policy aimed at hiding the truth from the global public.