Palestinian Territory – Euro-Med Monitor strongly condemns Israel's killing of five Al Jazeera crew members in the Gaza Strip, including correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh. This attack is part of a systematic policy to obscure the truth and silence witnesses, coming just hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's press conference attempting to whitewash the Israeli army's crimes.
According to Euro-Med Monitor's field team, an Israeli drone strike targeted a journalists' tent near Al-Shifa Hospital on Sunday evening, 11 August 2025, killing five Al Jazeera crew members in Gaza City: correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa. Several other journalists were also injured.
This crime followed a conference by the Israeli Prime Minister, during which he intensified his incitement against independent media, attacked press coverage exposing Israeli army crimes, and vowed to press ahead with his plan to impose full control over Gaza City. This public incitement served as a direct signal to Israeli forces to silence voices conveying the truth, a message swiftly realised in the horrific killing of the journalists.
The killing of journalists in Gaza cannot be regarded merely as a war crime or a crime against humanity, but as a central act of genocide and a crucial tool in its execution
Israel's claim of responsibility for killing Anas al-Sharif underscores its blatant disregard for international law and starkly illustrates the consequences of impunity fostered by the international community's policy of support and silence, allowing such crimes to go unpunished.
The killing of journalists, particularly Anas al-Sharif, follows a series of incitements and accusations by Israeli forces, who had earlier killed his father in a direct strike in an attempt to pressure him into halting his journalistic work.
The escalation of crimes against the remaining journalists in the Gaza Strip, combined with the ongoing ban on foreign press crews since the start of the Israeli genocide on 7 October 2023, indicates a deliberate attempt to impose a complete media blackout on events in the enclave. This comes amid reports of a planned large-scale military operation across much of the Gaza Strip, particularly in Gaza City.
The Israeli targeting and deliberate, premeditated killing of journalists in the Gaza Strip, which is experiencing a full-scale genocide, to deter them from carrying out their reporting work is disgraceful. It demands urgent international action to hold those responsible accountable and to end the systematic Israeli targeting of Palestinian journalism.
Israel has turned its horrific 22-month war on the Gaza Strip into a slaughterhouse for Palestinian journalists, systematically targeting them and their workplaces in an effort to enforce a total media blackout across the enclave.
Euro-Med Monitor has documented the killing of over 230 journalists, both from media outlets and independents, in the Gaza Strip, along with the injury and detention of dozens more, marking the highest death toll among journalists in any war or conflict in modern history.
Israel's targeting of journalists in Gaza was deliberate and premeditated, leaving them no safe place. They were attacked while working in the field wearing distinctive press vests, in tents near hospitals set up to facilitate coverage, and even inside their homes with their families, where entire houses were destroyed over their heads. Media headquarters were also directly bombed and destroyed.
Targeting journalists constitutes a war crime and violates international law, as well as UN Security Council Resolutions 2222 (2015) and 1738 (2006), which condemn attacks on journalists and media workers in armed conflict. Article 79 of Additional Protocol I to the 1977 Geneva Conventions also affirms the obligation to protect journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict.
The killing of journalists in Gaza cannot be regarded merely as a war crime or a crime against humanity, but as a central act of genocide and a crucial tool in its execution. Palestinian journalists are part of the Palestinian people protected under the Genocide Convention and fall within the prohibited act of "killing members of the group" as defined therein. Such crimes play a fundamental role in the genocidal process by silencing the only witnesses capable of documenting and exposing these atrocities to the world, thereby enabling the continuation of mass killing, displacement, and the comprehensive destruction of the foundations of life without oversight or witnesses.
The unprecedented number of journalists targeted, the timing of these attacks with major military escalations, and the deliberate targeting of prominent media figures who most expose Israeli crimes, such as Anas al-Sharif, following public threats, clearly indicate a specific intent to destroy the Palestinian community in part. This demonstrates that the killing of journalists is not incidental, but an integral component of the operational framework of genocide.
Targeting journalists under these circumstances, with full knowledge of their role and clear identification, reflects a systematic effort to remove all means of exposing crimes, paving the way for wider massacres in isolation from global scrutiny, as part of an official Israeli policy to conduct genocide in Gaza without international or media oversight.
An independent international investigation into Israel's crimes against journalists is essential, especially in light of its long-standing record of targeting the press in the occupied Palestinian territory, most notably during the genocide in the Gaza Strip. Euro-Med Monitor urges an end to the impunity Israel has long enjoyed, which has fuelled the escalation of attacks on journalists over the years.
Euro-Med Monitor calls for the imposition of political, diplomatic, and economic sanctions on Israeli officials involved, and for an immediate halt to the supply of arms or technologies used to target journalists and other civilians. States should invoke universal jurisdiction to prosecute those responsible before national courts and ensure urgent field protection for journalists in the Palestinian territory through an independent international mechanism.
The international community bears full legal and moral responsibility for every crime committed by Israel, given its silence and inaction. The United Nations and other influential states must move beyond verbal condemnation and take concrete measures, including imposing binding sanctions, halting the supply of arms and logistical support to Israel, and activating international accountability mechanisms to end the ongoing genocide in Gaza and ensure its perpetrators are brought to justice.
