by Shaun King
He was young, kind and brave. A Black Palestinian journalist who carried light and warmth during a genocide. And Israel silenced him.
Israel just slaughtered a young brother that I loved for the sake of Allah. I literally am struggling to breathe and hold back the tears.
His name was Mohammed Salama. He was a journalist. He was an Afro-Palestinian. He was gentle, warm, kind. And now he is gone.
Before I was banned from Instagram, we would DM each other often. Then we found each other on WhatsApp and TikTok and kept in touch there.
I can still remember the first time I saw his face, all the way back in December of 2023. We were trying to have a video chat. He spoke almost no English. I speak almost no Arabic. It didn’t matter. We laughed. We smiled. We waved at each other through the pixelated screen. Just glad to see one another.
That’s the kind of soul he was. He carried light. Even across distance, across language, across the weight of war, he radiated a warmth that you could feel.
He was the best of us. And Israel killed him.
When I first saw his photo on my timeline this morning, I just assumed he had posted something that went viral. And I thought nothing of it. Then I noticed that several people were posting his photo.
And my heart just sank. I know what this means. Everybody in Gaza was making their tribute to the latest journalist slaughtered in cold blood by these evil monsters.
Afro-Palestinians in Gaza: A hidden people
What made Mohammed’s presence even more powerful for me was his identity. He was one of the first Afro-Palestinians I met in Gaza.
Few Americans even know they exist. But they do — a community of Black Palestinians, descendants of Africans who came centuries ago as soldiers, pilgrims and workers, many settling in Gaza and Jerusalem. Over time, they built neighborhoods, mosques and families, and they became a living part of the Palestinian nation.
And yet, like so many marginalized groups, they often live at the intersection of struggles — facing both the racism of being Black in this racist world and the oppression of being Palestinian under Israeli apartheid.
Mohammed carried all of that, and yet he still proudly chose to be a journalist. He worked for Al Jazeera. Still chose to tell the truth about what was happening around him. Still chose to risk his life to give the world a window into Gaza’s suffering.
His story is part of a larger story most Americans don’t know. Afro-Palestinians in Gaza are often erased by the world from public view. Now the most prominent Black journalist in Gaza was just martyred.
Israel’s proud evil
I have said it before, but I will say it again: I have never in my life witnessed a nation so proudly and publicly evil as Israel.
Other tyrants at least pretended. Other war criminals at least tried to hide. But Israel? They don’t even bother anymore.
They bomb hospitals and post about it. They starve children and then joke about aid trucks. They assassinate journalists and shrug when confronted.
There are no red lines. No boundaries. No limits.
And now they’ve killed Mohammed — a man whose only weapon was his pen, his camera and his courage.
The war on journalists
Make no mistake: Mohammed was not the first journalist Israel has killed in Gaza, and tragically, he will not be the last.
Since October 2023, Israel has targeted and murdered HUNDREDS of Palestinian journalists. The International Federation of Journalists has called it the deadliest time for reporters in modern history. Al Jazeera’s Shireen Abu Akleh, one of the most famous Palestinian journalists, was gunned down in 2022. And now, young reporters like Mohammed — less known, less protected, but no less brave — are being picked off one by one.
Why? Because Israel knows the truth is its greatest enemy. Bombs kill bodies, but journalism kills lies. And Mohammed, in his quiet, dedicated way, was a threat to the lie.
That’s why they killed him.
What we lost
When Mohammed died, the world lost more than one man. We lost a storyteller. We lost a witness. We lost a thread in the fabric of Palestinian survival.
He should have lived to grow old. He should have lived to see freedom. He should have lived to raise children who would know him not only as a journalist but as a father, a neighbor, a friend.
Instead, he is gone — a casualty of a genocide the world is watching in real time, a genocide too many governments still fund, still arm, still excuse.
Saying his name
Friends, I am asking you to remember him. Say his name: Mohammed Salama.
Do not let him vanish into statistics. Do not let his story be buried under rubble and numbers. He was not a number. He was my brother.
And for me, this is the sharpest grief: that he tried so hard to tell the truth to the world, and in the end, it is now up to us to tell his truth.
My appeal
This post is not just about grief. It is about memory, about witness, about resistance.
I will not let Mohammed be forgotten. And I will not let Israel’s proud evil be normalized.
If you are reading this, stand with me. Subscribe today. Help me carry Mohammed’s story to the world. Help me make sure his death is not in vain.
For Mohammed. For Gaza. For Palestine.
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