WHENEVER it appears that the news from the Middle East cannot get any worse, it does. Food-security experts at the UN warned last month that Gaza was facing what they described as “the worst-case scenario of famine”. Deaths related to malnutrition, it is said, now exceed 200; and half of those who have died are children. More than 61,000 Palestinians are reported to have been killed since the military operation began. Last week, the Israeli Security Cabinet agreed a plan to ramp up the war effort by taking control of Gaza City: something that, the UN has warned, will lead to “more massive forced displacement” and “more killing”. All wars are vile. The scale of human suffering as a result of this conflict is unspeakable. Even those who felt strong sympathy with Israel in the aftermath of the appalling attacks of 7 October 2023 — in which 1200 people were killed and 251 were abducted — must question the proportionality of the Israeli response.

One fresh sorrow among so many is the killing of six Al Jazeera journalists on Sunday. The main target was the prominent reporter Anas al-Sharif. His assassination was deliberate, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have confirmed, although they have, as yet, produced no evidence that Sharif had “served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas”, as they allege. The BBC reports that Sharif once worked for a Hamas media team in Gaza, before the current conflict, but this had not prevented his criticising Hamas in social-media posts. Shockingly, 192 journalists have been killed since the start of the war 22 months ago: more than the entire number killed worldwide in the preceding three years. This matters profoundly. Aside from the immeasurable loss to their families — and Sharif was a 28-year-old married father of two, whose own father had been killed in the conflict — deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime under international law. Further, it is essential that journalists are free to witness the conflict as it unfolds. Much is made of Israel’s status as a democracy, but this is a nation that has gone to great lengths to prevent international journalists’ entry into Gaza, with the result that most news outlets have to rely on local reporters: people who face starvation and air strikes daily.

Sharif knew that his life was at risk. He left a poignant message, to be published in the event of his death. It opened: “If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.” He had “tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification”, he wrote. International condemnation swiftly followed his and his colleagues’ deaths. His posthumous message concluded: “Do not forget Gaza. And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.” Sharif knew that truth is what sets us free. The watching world has a duty to heed his words.