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Israel has killed five Al Jazeera journalists in a targeted strike near Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital.
Among those killed were Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa. They were all in a tent for journalists at the hospital’s main gate when it was hit, according to the broadcaster.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that it had targeted Anas al-Sharif, claiming that he had “served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas”. It did not mention any of the other journalists who were killed. At least seven people were reportedly killed in the strike, including the five journalists.
Al Jazeera termed the strike a “targeted assassination” that was “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”. The network called on the international community and all relevant organisations to “take decisive measures to halt this ongoing genocide and end the deliberate targeting of journalists”.
Shortly before his death, al-Sharif, a 28-year-old Arabic correspondent who reported extensively from northern Gaza, wrote on X that Israel had launched intense bombardment on the eastern and southern parts of Gaza City.
According to Al Jazeera, in a final message, written on April 6, to be published in the event of his death, al-Sharif said he “lived the pain in all its details” and “tasted grief and loss repeatedly”. “Despite that, I never hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or misrepresentation, hoping that God would witness those who remained silent, those who accepted our killing, and those who suffocated our very breaths,” he said.
“Not even the mangled bodies of our children and women moved their hearts or stopped the massacre that our people have been subjected to for over a year and a half.”
Last month, after Israeli army spokesperson Avichai Adraee reshared a video that accused al-Sharif of being a member of Hamas’s military wing, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of expression, Irene Khan, said she was “deeply alarmed by repeated threats and accusations of the Israeli army” against al-Sharif. “Fears for al-Sharif’s safety are well-founded as there is growing evidence that journalists in Gaza have been targeted and killed by the Israeli army on the basis of unsubstantiated claims that they were Hamas terrorists,” Khan said.
Rights groups say Israel has routinely sought to discredit Palestinian journalists since its offensive on Gaza began in October 2023 by labeling them as Hamas operatives. The UN has condemned the killings and renewed calls for international media access to Gaza, urging Israel to uphold press freedom.
The Committee to Protect Journalists last month said it was gravely concerned for the journalist’s safety as he was being “targeted by an Israeli military smear campaign”.
Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of the CPJ, told the BBC that Israeli authorities have failed to provide evidence to show that the journalists they killed were terrorists. “This is a pattern we’ve seen from Israel – not just in the current war, but in the decades preceding – in which typically a journalist will be killed by Israeli forces and then Israel will say after the fact that they are a terrorist, but provides very little evidence to back up those claims,” she said.