Anas al-Sharif, one of Al Jazeera’s most prominent correspondents in Gaza, was killed Sunday night alongside four colleagues in an Israeli airstrike on a tent for journalists outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
The Israel Defense Forces admitted to carrying out the strike, claiming al-Sharif was “the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organisation” and involved in planning rocket attacks.
Rights groups and UN officials dismissed the claim as unsubstantiated.
The UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, Irene Khan, had previously called Israel’s accusations against al-Sharif “a blatant assault on journalists.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said the attack fit a “pattern of labelling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence,” and condemned the killing as “appalling.”
Al Jazeera described the 28-year-old reporter as “one of Gaza’s bravest journalists,” accusing Israel of targeting him to silence frontline coverage of the war.
Al-Sharif had reported extensively from northern Gaza since the start of the conflict, often under fire.
In July, he told CPJ he lived with the “feeling that I could be bombed and martyred at any moment.” His father was killed in an Israeli strike in December 2023, but al-Sharif refused to leave.
Minutes before his death, he posted on X: “Intense, concentrated Israeli bombardment using ‘fire belts’ is hitting the eastern and southern areas of Gaza City.”
The strike also killed Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa.
Israel has killed multiple Al Jazeera journalists and their relatives during the 22-month war, including Hossam Shabat in March, and Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi earlier in August.
Gaza’s government media office says 237 journalists have been killed since October 7, 2023 with CPJ documented at least 186.
Israel bars foreign reporters from entering Gaza and denies deliberately targeting journalists.
In a statement, Al Jazeera Media Network condemned the killing as “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”.
“This attack comes amid the catastrophic consequences of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has seen the relentless slaughter of civilians, forced starvation, and the obliteration of entire communities,” the network said.
“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.”
