May This Image Be the Last: Praying for, and With, Anas al-Sharif
Like millions of people across the world, I have Gaza on my mind. Every waking moment of life bears the background thrum of fear, anxiety, despair: how can this be happening before our eyes? Then guilt, because this has been happening, for much longer than we have cared to see. In these times, drawing is my prayer and my resistance against turning numb and shutting down.
The people killed by the Israeli Defence Forces in Palestine every day are not just numbers, they were humans full of love and longing, appetites, fears and ambition. As I draw Anas al-Sharif, I think of him putting on his Press flak jacket every morning, the same jacket that turns journalists in Gaza into targets. I wonder at his courage, the sense of duty that drove him and his colleagues to report relentlessly through fire, bombings, starvation and disease. I add brushstrokes to his hair and try to imagine what it must feel like to try and appear presentable for a televised report in the midst of a genocide. I draw his eyes, his ears and think of him as a young boy dreaming of becoming a journalist one day. As I draw, I repeat Anas al-Sharif's prayer: may this image be the last. May the killings end.
Nishita Jha is a writer and illustrator based in London. Click here to subscribe to her weekly illustrated newsletter.
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