“If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice…Do not forget Gaza…And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.”

These were the final words of Anas al-Sharif, written 4 months before he was killed by the Israeli military.  

To the outside world, Anas was a journalist for Al Jazeera, reporting on the devastating siege of Gaza. But behind the camera, he was much more than that. The 28-year-old was a father of two young children. He was a husband. A son.

To the Israeli military, he was a terrorist.

Through his camera, the world watched fathers as they desperately dug through the rubble, searching for their missing children. They watched as he filmed doctors performing surgeries without electricity and proper tools. The world watched as he filmed young children, no more than skin and bones, waiting in lines to get food. Anas could have left anytime, saving himself and his family. But he didn’t. Despite multiple warnings from the Israeli military threatening to kill the young journalist, he stayed. Eventually, Anas became one of the last journalists in northern Gaza. His camera continued to show the devastation around him, as he became one of the last windows into Gaza.

Maybe it was because he refused to leave. Maybe it was because he ignored the death threats he received. But to millions in Gaza and all over the world, Anas wasn’t just a reporter. He was a light in the darkness of the war, the journalist they could trust in a region where there weren’t many left.

One day, that light went dark. Anas – one of the few journalists left alive – was dead.

He had spent years of his life telling the stories of others. Years of creating headlines to show the world. But on August 10, 2025, Anas himself became the headline.

The strike came from an Israeli drone at 11:22 PM, targeting the clearly marked Al Jazeera PRESS tent. His body was found along with those of his fellow reporters Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, Momen Aliwa, and freelance journalist Mohammed al-Khalidi. All of them had been killed in the same strike.

Soon after his death, a statement released by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) made people question who Anas truly was. Was he truly just a journalist? Or was he a Hamas terrorist? It was one word that transformed a civilian reporter into a legitimate military target.

More Than Just a Word:

The word “terrorist” is not just a word that describes violence. It is a political label that alters the modern world day after day. Once it is used, it can shape public opinion, influence media coverage, and even decide who is allowed to live or die. Who decides when someone is a terrorist?

It comes down to context and time. The same act of violence can be seen as a terrorist attack, an armed uprising, or a country rightly defending itself depending on what knowledge is given before the attack. The timing of that context also matters – where did the story start? And what plays a major part in providing context at different times? The media all across the world.

The media doesn’t directly control history, but they do control how it is portrayed and what sticks with the people. They decide where the story begins, where the timeline truly starts.

The Timeline Trap:

Begin the story on October 7, 2023. You read about how around 6,000 armed militants wearing masks and carrying rifles burst into southern Israel, murdering, torturing, and raping civilians as they make their way across the country. The attack is sudden and unprovoked. It is as if the violence was for no reason other than making people suffer. In the end? At least 1,200 Israelis dead and 251 taken as hostages in what became known as the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. From that angle, the attacks are the main focus, with the decades of occupation and oppression before then left out. The context is almost an afterthought.

Now start that same story almost 78 years ago, in the 1948 Nakba. You read about how almost 55% of Palestinian land was taken and given to the Jewish minority. How zionist forces carried out almost 70 massacres, all the while taking more land and rights from the Palestinians. By the break in fighting in 1949, Israel had taken over 78% of historic Palestine, pushing out hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes. Follow the rest of the wars, the occupation, the blockade of Gaza, and October 7 doesn’t look like it came out of a historical vacuum as a random attack. The context is essential.

This is the timeline trap: start the clock at one moment, not providing the important context that happened prior to the act of violence itself, and someone is a terrorist. Start the clock earlier, and that same violence has a story that leads people to question that label.

It’s not a matter of which story is right or wrong. It is a matter of which the world sees, and that can greatly affect who people support and hate. This trap isn’t harmless. It is what allowed the IDF to slap a terrorist label onto Anas. It is what allowed them to deprive Anas’s children of their father.

History vs. Real Life:

Context isn’t just something applied to conflicts. It’s something that is necessary for history. In my high school history class, we never just start with the event itself, but rather the context before it.

Take the American Revolution. We don’t look at the moment the first shot was fired to question why the Americans fought the British, because by that point, we already know the context that led to it – taxation without representation, British rule, and growing resentment.

But whenever I read news articles online about the Palestine-Israel conflict, things are framed differently. The moment begins with an attack, and soon after, labels follow. One attack may be called “self-defense”.

A similar attack may be called “terrorism”.

And after the label of terrorism was applied, trying to figure out why sounded like defending what had happened.

That was the contradiction I noticed – in history class, we are encouraged to look deeper for the context, to find out what caused someone to act as they did. But in real life? That same context acts like a shield, and searching for it is like trying to excuse the violence of different groups.

This same contradiction isn’t just applied to the American Revolution. It is applied to any violence across history, such as the resistance movements of World War II (WWII). When we study these groups today, we never just start with the acts of violence. Rather, we learn the context behind those acts.

Take the French Resistance. During Nazi-occupied France, this group carried out assassinations in broad daylight, sabotaged French railways and infrastructure, and used guerrilla tactics to fight the German forces. But we don’t go back and say that they were terrorists, because we understand the context behind their actions and why the environment needed their resistance.

That doesn’t mean that people didn’t die in the fighting. It doesn’t mean that today, it’s ok for groups to kill and bomb civilians. But understand this – if we removed the context of the occupation, the Nazi laws, the oppression, and started with the violence, wouldn’t you think it was terrorism too?

So how come we search for context for events that happened 80 years ago, but not modern conflicts? Why are we so hasty to label someone a terrorist, thinking that finding context is defending them?

That is where the terrorist label gets dangerous – when we are discouraged from questioning why.

The Imbalance of Power:

But context is only part of the issue. There is another major factor in how attacks are framed.

Power.

Governments and armed groups are not equal. One has precise technology to target and kill, whereas the other has makeshift rockets and crude guns.

Israel uses AI to track suspicious activity, locate an enemy, and swiftly dispatch the enemy without harming civilians. But when that same technology kills thousands instead of the few targeted, it isn’t labeled as terrorism. Instead, it becomes collateral or an accident. Israel has killed over 73,000 Palestinians in its war with Hamas. And not once has it been labeled as terrorism by any Western media outlet. Instead, it is self-defense.

Compare that to Hamas. An estimated 1,200 Israelis were killed in the October 7 attacks, with hundreds more being killed afterwards. Every time, it is terrorism.

Neither is forgivable. But how come the country with superior weapons, better targeting, and the “most moral army in the world” has killed more innocent civilians?

And why is it always “self-defense” and not terrorism? Because not everyone in the world has equal power. This begs the question: is it only terrorism when an influential country says it is?

The reality is that influential countries like Israel and its allies are able to manipulate the timeline to mask their shortcomings, casually assigning the terrorist label as a way to ethically eliminate enemies.

So the next time you see the news, the next time you read a label with the word “terrorist,” remember that this isn’t a label to throw around. It has consequences. It kills. It was this label that killed Anas al-Sharif, a man, a father, a husband, a son who knew he was going to die. He didn’t stop because he was scared.

He stopped because his life was taken from him. Do not forget Anas. Do not forget Gaza. And do not forget the power of the terrorist label that killed him.

---