Israel is fending off criticism after killing a well known Al Jazeera correspondent whom it accused of being a Hamas fighter in a strike on Gaza City on Sunday night.
Anas al-Sharif, 28, was killed while sheltering in a tent near Al-Shifa hospital with four other Al Jazeera journalists. Two other people were reportedly also killed in the strike.
Al Jazeera, which is owned by Qatar, released a statement condemning the “assassination of its journalists by Israeli occupation forces” on Monday. It tied the strike to Israel’s impending plan, advanced last week, to take over Gaza City.
“The order to assassinate Anas Al Sharif, one of Gaza’s bravest journalists, and his colleagues, is a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza,” the network said.
The war in Gaza is the deadliest on record for journalists, according to the Costs of War project at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. At least 186 journalists have been killed in the ongoing war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Israel has said that many of those killed were working for Hamas or had ties to it. The Israeli army has not allowed foreign reporters to enter Gaza independently during the war that began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, so much of the reporting from the besieged enclave has come from Palestinian journalists. Some of them, including al-Sharif, have become well known on social media as global attention has turned to the grim conditions in Gaza.
In a post on X Sunday announcing the strike, the Israeli military repeated its October 2024 claim that al-Sharif was a “Hamas terrorist” who “posed as an Al Jazeera journalist.”
“Al-Sharif was the head of a Hamas terrorist cell and advanced rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and IDF troops,” the IDF said. “Intelligence and documents from Gaza, including rosters, terrorist training lists and salary records, prove he was a Hamas operative integrated into Al Jazeera. A press badge isn’t a shield for terrorism.”
Al-Sharif denied the allegations last year, as did Al Jazeera. Israel suspended and then barred the network from operating in Israel and the West Bank last year, saying that its lopsided coverage of the war was endangering soldiers.
The killings also drew condemnation from several world leaders and human rights groups. A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who announced plans to potentially recognize a Palestinian state last month, said that he was “gravely concerned” about the targeting of journalists in Gaza.
“Reporters covering conflicts are afforded protection under international humanitarian law, and journalists must be able to report independently, without fear, and Israel must ensure journalists can carry out their work safely,” the spokesperson said.
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also condemned the killings in a post on X, writing that it was in “grave breach of international humanitarian law” and calling for “immediate, safe & unhindered access to Gaza for all journalists.”
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