The Living Record is an oral archive, an interactive memorial, and a testament to the collective will of Gaza’s journalists, who chose the path of truth despite being marked for death by the Israeli occupation and the complicit American media. It is also a record of service. One year ago, Anas al-Sharif was martyred. He was assassinated alongside five of his colleagues — Mohammed Qraiqea, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, Mohammed al-Khalidi, and Moamen Aliwa — in an Israeli strike on the journalists' tent outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Grieving like so many others, like the millions around the world who knew Anas as Gaza’s voice, the New York War Crimes editorial collective set out to gather a small collection of eulogies from those who knew him. The responses transformed the project. Anas, his colleagues told us, would not have wanted to be remembered as a singular hero, but as a servant of the Palestinian cause. So, over the course of the following year, we gathered spoken testimonies from fellow journalists, photographers, cameramen, journalism professors, students, and workers across the media sector in Gaza. Each contributor was asked to record a personal remembrance of one or more martyrs, to tell a small part of the history that, as Samira Nassar says, should be written in gold.
Some testimonies, along with their accompanying transcripts and translations, have been minimally edited for aural clarity, to preserve the integrity of the message or to protect the privacy of martyrs and their families. Most are published in full. All are published with the speaker’s full consent. Translations were produced by the collective with the help of Arabic-to-English translators around the world, working to honor both the content and the intention in every sentence. We urge you to listen as you read, whether or not you understand Arabic, to hear what cannot be translated.
Special thanks are owed to Alaa al-Quaisi and Ameed Faleh, for their invaluable help with translation; Zarifa Hassan, for connecting us to contributors; and Emad Ghaboun, for videography. Members of the Palestinian Youth Movement assisted in various capacities.
This archive is for life; it will evolve. Between now and October 7, 2026, we will publish the rest of the 50 testimonies collected so far. We plan to collect and publish eulogies for more of the many journalists who have been martyred in Israel’s wars of aggression throughout the region, and we will continue, through the larger New York War Crimes project, to amplify the voices of Gaza. Israel kills the messengers, but they cannot kill the story. As Hazem Rajab says of his brothers in the field, those who depart as martyrs stay alive in our hearts.