DUBAI: An Indonesian doctor volunteering in Gaza has given a witness account of Israel’s assassination of Al Jazeera reporter Anas Al-Sharif earlier this week, describing how an Israeli drone bombed a gathering of journalists, killing an entire media crew.
Al-Sharif, Al Jazeera’s 28-year-old Arabic correspondent who had reported extensively from northern Gaza, was one of the network’s most recognizable faces.
He was killed inside a tent for journalists outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Sunday night, alongside six other people, including another Al Jazeera correspondent, Mohammed Qreiqeh, and the network’s camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal. Also killed were freelance cameraman Momen Aliwa and freelance journalist Mohammed Al-Khalidi.
Dr. Eka Budhi Satyawardhana, a neurosurgeon from the Jakarta-based Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, who is currently volunteering at Al-Shifa Hospital, was at the scene when the attack took place.
“It happened around 11:20 p.m. At that time, our MER-C team and members of several medical teams from other NGOs were resting in the mess hall, but we all woke up when we heard a very loud explosion,” he said in a voice message released by MER-C on Tuesday evening.
“The bombing was carried out with a quadcopter. Usually, if a quadcopter is spying, it has AI that pinpoints the location, and then the facial features. When the AI result matches the targeted victim, the bomb is released.”
The site was busy at the time of the attack, as a simple food stall in front of the hospital was a gathering place for journalists.
For another 10 hours, the hospital’s emergency teams were still trying to save those wounded, including a child whose body was torn by the blast.
“The emergency room was still very busy around 8 or 9 in the morning. They were treating victims of the bombing,” Dr. Satyawardhana said. “The explosion was large, causing collateral damage.”
The killing and the doctor’s account have sent chills through Indonesia, where many people have been following Al-Sharif’s reporting.
“They’re using AI to detect faces and kill with drones ... That’s so scary. I felt like my body was drowning and aching,” Wanda Hamidah, an Indonesian actress and politician, told Arab News.
“Anas was one of the last surviving journalists in Gaza. They’re targeting journalists, nurses, doctors, medical staff. This genocidal cruelty is beyond words.”
The assassination of Al-Sharif, who has been widely celebrated as the “voice of Gaza,” came after months of incitement against him and Israeli officials numerous times, hinting that he was on their hit list.
Aware of it, Al-Sharif wrote his last will in advance. It was published on his social media accounts following his killing.
“If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice,” he wrote. “Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people.”
Israel has killed nearly 270 journalists and media workers since launching its war on Gaza, according to Shireen.ps, a monitoring website named after Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in 2022.
Data from Brown University’s “Cost of War” project shows that more journalists were killed in Israel’s war on Gaza than in the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined.
“It looks like a desperate attempt to silence all the journalists, and it’s so clear. They are clearly targeting journalists,” said Paramita Mentari Kesuma, an Indonesian sustainability expert.
After Al-Sharif’s assassination, many Western media outlets failed to condemn the systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists and instead carried the Israeli military’s justification for his killing, framing him — like many others over the past 22 months — as a legitimate target.
“Journalists do not speak on behalf of other journalists who are attacked,” Kesuma said. “Journalists should come together to speak up.”
