Killing of Al Jazeera staff in Gaza ‘silencing journalistic voices'
Prominent Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, 28 and four of his colleagues were killed while sheltering outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Sunday night.
Another reporter was also killed in the Israeli airstrike.
The National Union of Journalists is to hold a protest at the Spire in Dublin on Monday evening to condemn the killing of reporters and camera operators in Gaza by Israel.
Ireland's deputy premier and foreign affairs minister Simon Harris said he is to engage with his EU counterparts in relation to Gaza on Monday.
'Can I say firstly, just to extend the sympathy and solidarity of the people of Ireland with Al Jazeera and the journalists – the five staff members of Al Jazeera and the one other reporter – who have been killed in a horrifying attack in Gaza,' he said speaking outside Government Buildings on Monday.
'In many ways, it is the silencing of some of the few journalistic voices left in Gaza.
'Of course, any attack on any civilian – including, of course, any attack on any journalist – should always be absolutely condemned for what it is.
'At a time when the people of Gaza desperately need to see a ceasefire, an end to the violence, a surge in humanitarian aid, and of course, the release of the hostages, all of the indications from (Israeli President Benjamin) Netanyahu is of an Israeli government intended to go in the complete opposite direction to that.
'I do think it is interesting in recent days to have seen an increase in protest within Israel, Israeli people standing up and saying to their government 'not in my name'.
'Israeli people wanting to live in peace and security as well, alongside the Palestinian people and, of course, Israeli people rightly wanting hostages released immediately too.'
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Palestinian reporters killed and foreigners barred in Israel's battle for Gaza narrative
Israel is running two Gaza campaigns: one for military control of the strip; another for narrative control of how the world understands what happens there. In theory, Palestinian journalists and social media influencers documenting starvation, mass killing and other Israeli war crimes in Gaza are protected civilians under international law. But those paper protections have meant little on the ground in Gaza, by far the most dangerous place in the world to be a reporter, where more than 180 Palestinian journalists were killed in 22 months of war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Even though it is illegal to target journalists, the CPJ said that over the same period 26 reporters were victims of targeted killings, which it described as murders. The most recent was the 28-year-old Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, killed on Sunday in his makeshift newsroom outside a hospital, along with four colleagues. Press freedom groups and journalists say those killings are part of a campaign of intimidation to shut down vital reporting, which Israel has justified internationally with smears and false claims that the targets were undercover Hamas fighters. With international reporters barred from independent reporting in Gaza – a handful have been allowed in under Israeli military escort, but they are not allowed to move freely or speak to Palestinians – the work done by journalists in Gaza is critical. Coverage of the war in Gaza is constrained by Israeli attacks on Palestinian journalists and a bar on international reporters entering the Gaza Strip to report independently on the war. Israel has not allowed foreign reporters to enter Gaza since 7 October 2023, unless they are under Israeli military escort. Reporters who join these trips have no control over where they go, and other restrictions include a bar on speaking to Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinian journalists and media workers inside Gaza have paid a heavy price for their work reporting on the war, with over 180 killed since the conflict began. The committee to protect journalists has determined that at least 19 of them 'were directly targeted by Israeli forces in killings which CPJ classifies as murders'. Foreign reporters based in Israel filed a legal petition seeking access to Gaza, but it was rejected by the supreme court on security grounds. Private lobbying by diplomats and public appeals by prominent journalists and media outlets have been ignored by the Israeli government. To ensure accurate reporting from Gaza given these restrictions, the Guardian works with trusted journalists on the ground; our visual teams verify photo and videos from third parties; and we use clearly sourced data from organisations that have a track record of providing accurate information in Gaza during past conflicts, or during other conflicts or humanitarian crises. Emma Graham-Harrison, chief Middle East correspondent 'I have no doubt that the prevention of international access, the killings of journalists, the targeting of media facilities, the punishment of [Israeli] outlets like Haaretz is part of a deliberate strategy on the part of Israel to conceal what is happening inside Gaza,' said the CPJ chief executive, Jodie Ginsberg. She pointed to a recent incident when a BBC crew reported from a Jordanian military plane dropping humanitarian aid into Gaza – but was barred by Israel from filming the devastation below. 'We had the example of the international news crews being allowed to film the airdrops but not the devastation when the doors opened.' In July, al-Sharif, one of the most prominent journalists still working in Gaza, went viral on social media when he broke down on air covering starvation. Passersby urged him to keep going because he gave Gaza a voice. Soon after, an Israeli military spokesperson revived allegations – first aired in 2024 – that he was a militant, including accusing him of faking mass hunger in a 'false Hamas campaign on starvation'. The CPJ issued a stark warning that those Israeli claims were a death threat. 'These latest unfounded accusations represent an effort to manufacture consent to kill al-Sharif,' CPJ regional director Sara Qudah said at the time. 'This is not the first time al-Sharif has been targeted by the Israeli military, but the danger to his life is now acute.' Al-Sharif had also anticipated his own death and described it as retaliation for his reporting in a statement released on social media. 'If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice,' he wrote. Israel has published a dossier of documents it says were recovered from Gaza and link al-Sharif to Hamas. They end in 2021, two years before the war began, and do not even attempt to address his regular appearances live on camera. A role as one of the most prominent journalists in one of the most closely surveilled places on Earth would be strikingly difficult to combine with command of a Hamas unit during an all-out war. Documents Israel published after killing another Al Jazeera journalist last year claimed Ismail al-Ghoul was given a military rank when he was 10 years old. While they marshalled contradictory and unconvincing evidence, the existence of those files reflected Israeli concerns about pressure from western allies, and the need for at least the appearance of compliance with international law. Despite international pressure, Israel has not offered any explanation for the deaths of al-Sharif's four colleagues, protected civilians killed in their workplace. Ginsberg said she feared that was a warning that already unimaginable risks had escalated further. 'What's astonishing to me is they've not even attempted to justify the other killings,' she said. 'So they're admitting to murdering those journalists, knowing they were journalists. 'I think this is deliberately intended to have a chilling effect to show that Israel can do what it likes, and nobody will take any action. 'If we are now at a stage where Israel can so brazenly target an entire news crew, what does that mean for the safety of any of the other journalists who are operating there. Who is next?' French historian Jean-Pierre Filiu, given rare permission to enter Gaza for academic research during the conflict, said a month researching there had also convinced him that Israel is trying to silence reporting from Gaza. 'Now I understand why Israel is denying the international press access to such an appalling scene,' he said in an interview with Haaretz after the trip. 'Even though I have been in a number of war zones in the past, from Ukraine to Afghanistan, via Syria, Iraq and Somalia, I have never, but never, experienced anything like this.'
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Morning Mail: Trump seizes control of DC police; funerals for journalists killed by Israel; WA reef devastation
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Why Israel believes Al Jazeera reporter killed in Gaza was a terrorist
When Anas al-Sharif broke down in tears last month while reporting on the Gaza hunger crisis, he was widely praised for giving a voice to ordinary Palestinians. On Monday, television screens across the Arab world were again focused on the 28-year-old. This time, he was wrapped in a white funeral shroud, alongside four of his Al Jazeera colleagues. They had been deliberately assassinated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) the night before in an air strike on a tent near the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City The TV network and critics across the world alleged a direct link between Sharif's reporting and his death. They claimed that Sharif, who had a wife and two young children, so enraged the Israelis by exposing the humanitarian consequences of their aid policy that he paid with his life, as scores of journalists have before him during this war. Describing Sharif as 'one of Gaza's bravest journalists', Al Jazeera said the attack was a 'desperate attempt to silence voices in anticipation of the occupation of Gaza '. Israel, however, said Sharif was a Hamas terrorist, the head of a cell responsible for 'advancing rocket attacks', and that it had the documents to prove it. In an official statement late on Sunday night, the IDF described Sharif as someone who merely 'posed as a journalist for the Al Jazeera network'. The IDF first made this claim last October. Israel said then that its ground operations in the Strip had unearthed evidence that Sharif and five Al Jazeera colleagues were operatives for either Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an allied terror group. The IDF claimed it had seized a list of Hamas operatives in the northern Gaza Strip brigade, as well as a form that listed the injuries sustained by some Hamas members, plus a phone directory of the east Jabaliya battalion, each bearing Sharif's name. These, said Israel, 'unequivocally' proved Sharif's involvement as an active Hamas militant since 2013. However, the documents presented by the IDF appeared to be selected screen grabs of electronic spreadsheets and it was impossible to verify them independently. The Telegraph asked the IDF to provide the originals, or at least more information about where and how the purported evidence was discovered. The Telegraph also asked why the IDF chose to strike this month, having identified Sharif as an alleged terrorist last year. The Israeli military has sometimes been wrong in the past when giving out evidence to justify a controversial strike. However, there are other ways a person could be linked to Hamas, which ran the entire civil administration of the Gaza Strip before Oct 7 2023, than active terrorism. On Monday, the BBC reported that Sharif had previously been part of a Hamas media team. The broadcaster did not give a source for this and the Telegraph has not seen evidence for or against it. But, just as some journalists in the West flit between working as active reporters and communications roles, it is plausible that the same happens in Gaza. Such involvement could mark a person as a legitimate target in Israel's eyes, particularly since March, when it has focused on assassinating members of the Hamas government, not just fighters. Even if neither claim is true and Sharif has never had any formal links with Hamas, it is possible that the Israelis believed him to be – at least morally – complicit, given the nature of his work as an Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza. Telegenic, energetic and, as July's starvation report showed, with ready access to his own emotions, Sharif has been one of the most prominent journalists reporting from the ground since Oct 7 2023. In a broadcast last January, he brought the news to the Arab world of the newly agreed Israel-Hamas ceasefire by dramatically divesting himself of his protective equipment live on air, surrounded by ecstatic Gazans. He was a natural. And his reports had caught the attention of Israel. As a general principle of journalism, consistently delivering arresting television can be a sign that a reporter enjoys good behind-the-scenes relations with the local authorities. As one veteran Palestinian journalist told The Telegraph: 'Most of the journalists operating in Gaza are affiliated with one group or another, otherwise they cannot operate. It doesn't necessarily mean that he is a terrorist.' As an Al Jazeera reporter, Sharif did not bring viewers the counter-arguments to the charge that Israel is deliberately starving Gazans – reports of Hamas looting aid, or of alleged UN incompetence, for example. Then there is the issue of Al Jazeera itself. Viewers of the network's English news channel or website might detect a general Western-critical perspective, but rarely anything improper. The Arabic channel, however, is very different. Run from Qatar, whose rulers are often criticised for showing sympathy to the Muslim Brotherhood, on whose principles Hamas is based, the channel has become an unofficial mouthpiece for the terror group since Oct 7 2023. Criticism of Hamas or Qatar is almost entirely absent – indeed, live broadcasts have been cut off when interviewees strayed into dangerous territory. Meanwhile, formal announcements from the Hamas politburo often air on Al Jazeera first. None of this is new: the channel strongly supported Hamas as far back as the 2006 elections, after which its offices in Ramallah were vandalised by infuriated supporters of Fatah, the dominant Palestinian movement in the West Bank. During the 2011 Arab Spring, Al Jazeera infuriated Arab governments with its apparent support for Islamist challengers. The network is detested in many capitals of the Middle East, and there were even reports of critical slogans voiced against it during recent protests in Gaza. However, nowhere is Al Jazeera reviled more than in Israel, which banned it last year. In the past month, the Jewish state has reacted furiously to international condemnation of alleged starvation in Gaza, branding this a 'Hamas narrative' and Western critics 'useful idiots' of the terror group. Israel will inevitably hold Al Jazeera at least partly responsible for the starvation narrative taking hold. This is evident from the bitter reaction to Sharif's tearful July report. Col Avichay Adraee, the IDF's Arabic language spokesman, accused Sharif of 'crocodile tears' and branded him a terrorist once again. That prompted the US-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists to say it was 'deeply alarmed' about Sharif's safety. Sunday's air strike essentially wiped out Al Jazeera as a functioning reporting team in Gaza City, the target of Israel's next military assault. Some suggested on Monday that the IDF struck the tent when it did because it was one of the rare occasions when all the journalists were together at the same time. The other reporters for the network who were killed were Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa. A sixth journalist, Mohammed al-Khaldi who worked as a freelance reporter, was also killed in the strike, according to Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Hospital. The Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 186 had been killed in the Gaza conflict. With the war set to ramp up towards full occupation within weeks, the bitter debate over the truth of information coming out of Gaza, and the allegiances of those who deliver it, will only get worse. A message was posthumously published on Sharif's X account. 'If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice,' he wrote. The IDF, steadfast in its position posted: 'A press badge isn't a shield for terrorism.'
