UN, media groups condemn Israel's deadly strike on Al Jazeera team in Gaza
AFP team
in Gaza City,
David Stout
in Jerusalem
Mourners in a procession march to the Sheikh Radwan cemetery in Gaza City for the burial of Al Jazeera journalists killed in an Israeli strike on their tent in Gaza City.
Photo:
AFP / Omar Al-Qattaa
Condemnations poured in from the United Nations and media rights groups after an Israeli strike killed an Al Jazeera news team in Gaza, as Palestinians mourned the journalists and Israel accused one of them of being a Hamas militant.
Dozens of Gazans stood amid bombed-out buildings in the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Monday (local time) to pay their respects to Anas al-Sharif, a prominent Al Jazeera correspondent aged 28, and four of his colleagues killed on Sunday.
Hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya said a sixth journalist, freelance reporter Mohammed Al-Khaldi, was killed in the strike that targeted the Al Jazeera team.
Mourners including men wearing blue journalists' flak jackets carried their bodies, wrapped in white shrouds with their faces exposed, through narrow alleys to their graves.
Israel confirmed it had targeted Sharif, whom it labelled a "terrorist" affiliated with Hamas, alleging he "posed as a journalist".
Al Jazeera said four other employees -- correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa -- were killed when the strike hit a tent set up for journalists outside the main gate of Al-Shifa.
An Israeli military statement accused Sharif of heading a Hamas "terrorist cell" and being "responsible for advancing rocket attacks" against Israelis.
The military released documents alleging to show the date of Sharif's enlistment with Hamas in 2013, an injury report from 2017 and the name of his military unit and rank.
According to local journalists who knew him, Sharif had worked at the start of his career with a Hamas communication office, where his role was to publicise events organised by the group that has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2006.
Sharif was one of the Al Jazeera's most recognisable faces working on the ground in Gaza, providing daily reports on the now 22-month-old war.
Media freedom groups have condemned the Israeli strike on journalists, which the UN human rights agency called a "grave breach of international humanitarian law".
A posthumous message, written by Sharif in April in case of his death, was published online saying he had been silenced and urging people "not to forget Gaza".
In July, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called for his protection following online posts by an Israeli military spokesman.
The group had accused Israel of a "pattern" of labelling journalists militants "without providing credible evidence", and said the military had levelled similar accusations against media workers in Gaza including Al Jazeera staff.
"International law is clear that active combatants are the only justified targets in a war setting," Jodie Ginsberg, CPJ's chief executive, told AFP on Monday.
Unless Israel "can demonstrate that Anas al-Sharif was still an active combatant, then there is no justification for his killing", she said.
Al Jazeera called the attack "a desperate attempt to silence voices exposing the Israeli occupation", as it described Sharif as "one of Gaza's bravest journalists".
The Qatari broadcaster also said the strike followed "repeated incitement" and calls by Israeli officials to target Sharif and his colleagues.
Reporters Without Borders says nearly 200 journalists have been killed in the war, which was sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel.
Israel prevents international reporters from entering Gaza, except on occasional tightly controlled trips with the military.
The strike on the news team in Gaza City came days after the Israeli security cabinet had approved plans to sent troops into the area, a decision met with mounting domestic and international criticism.
Netanyahu on Sunday said the military will conquer the remaining quarter or so of the territory not yet controlled by Israeli troops -- including much of Gaza City and Al-Mawasi, an Israeli-designated safe zone where huge numbers of Palestinians have sought refuge.
The plan, which Israeli media reported had triggered bitter disagreement between the government and military leadership, drew condemnation from protesters in Israel and numerous countries, including Israeli allies.
Notably, Germany, a major weapons supplier and staunch ally, announced the suspension of shipments of any arms that could be used in Gaza.
Australia said it would join a growing list of Western nations in recognising a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu has remained defiant, telling journalists on Sunday that "we will win the war, with or without the support of others."
The United Nations and humanitarian agencies have condemned the planned offensive, which UN Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenca said "will likely trigger another calamity in Gaza".
UN agencies warned last month that famine was unfolding in the territory, with Israel severely restricting the entry of aid.
Israel's offensive has killed at least 61,499 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, figures the United Nations says are reliable.
Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
- AFP
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A man holds a portrait of the late Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif as he gathers for a vigil to commemorate all journalists killed in Gaza, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague, on August 11, 2025. Photo: AFP/PHIL NIJHUIS Anas al-Sharif was born in the Jabalia camp in Gaza's north, the largest refugee camp and one of the most densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip. During the 2008 war in Gaza, when Israel launched a widespread bombing campaign on the territory, an 11-year-old Anas al-Sharif was interviewed by Al Jazeera, and said he dreamt of being a reporter. Sixteen years later - just months after Hamas launched its deadly attacks on Israel in October 2023, prompting a devastating Israeli military response in Gaza - he joined the broadcaster. "We grew up, but the face of the occupation did not change, and its aggression did not stop," he posted in February 2024. The CPJ said he had refused to leave Gaza's north or cease coverage in November 2023, when he was a volunteer at another media network, despite threats by Israeli military officers telling him to do so via phone calls and voice notes disclosing his location. A month later, an Israeli air strike hit his family home in Jabalia, killing his 90-year-old father. Al-Sharif and his colleagues have been forced to report on what they, too, are living through, including having to announce the deaths of multiple relatives live on air. As celebrations broke out following the announcement of a ceasefire deal in December 2024, al-Sharif took off his press helmet and bulletproof vest live on air to mark the moment. "I can finally take off this helmet, which has exhausted me all this time, and also this armour which has become a part of my body," he said. His final report was published after he was killed - his will and a final message. 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'Assassination,' wrote George Bernard Shaw in The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet, 'is the extreme form of censorship'. Such extremism visited Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif and his colleagues in Gaza City late on August 10. Resting in a tent located outside the main gate of Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital, he was killed alongside Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, and freelance reporter Mohammed al-Khaldi. Palestinian journalist Wadi Abu al-Saud recalls the drone attack taking place at 11.22pm. Having entered the tent opposite, he had raised his phone to make a call when an explosion occurred. 'A piece of shrapnel hit my phone. I looked back and saw people burning in flames. I tried to extinguish them. Anas and the others had died instantly from the airstrike.' In two subsequent videos, al-Saud vows to 'return to my life as a citizen. The truth has died and the coverage has ended.' IDF international spokesman Lt. Colonel Nadav Shoshani, straining verisimilitude, claimed that intelligence obtained prior to the strike proved that 'Sharif was an active Hamas military wing operative at the time of his elimination'. The reporter must have been frightfully busy then, able to juggle his tasks with Al Jazeera, filing news bulletins while playing the ambitious militant. But distinctions are meaningless for Shoshani, who went on to accuse the slain journalist of receiving 'a salary from the Hamas terror group and terrorist supporters, Al-Jazeera, at the same time.' Evidence is typically sketchy, but the Lt. Colonel was untroubled, as the 'declassified portion of our intelligence on al-Sharif' was merely small relative to the whole picture. That picture, the IDF contends, revealed Sharif's credentials as leader of a rocket-launching squad alongside membership of the Nukhba Force company in Hamas's East Jabalia Battalion. This proved far from convincing to Muhammed Shehada, analyst at the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, who made the solid, pertinent observation that al-Sharif's 'entire daily routine was standing in front of a camera from morning to evening.' Particularly troubling in this killing is that the IDF seemed to be laying the groundwork for justified assassination last month, when army spokesman Avichai Adraee reshared a video on social media making the accusation that al-Sharif was a member of Hamas's military wing. This proved chilling for the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of expression, Irene Khan. '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 are Hamas terrorists.' The Committee to Protect Journalists was suitably perturbed by Adraee's remarks to issue a demand last month that the 'international community' protect al-Sharif. 'This is not the first time Al-Sharif has been targeted by the Israeli military, but the danger to his life is now acute,' said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. 'Israel has killed at least six Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza during the war. These latest unfounded accusations represent an effort to manufacture consent to kill Al-Sharif.' The other journalists killed in the strike are not deemed worthy of mention by the IDF, affirming the tendency in Israeli military doctrine to kill those around the designated target as a perfectly tolerable practice. Again, the rulebook of international humanitarian war is discarded in favour of a normalised murderousness. The rulebook has also been abandoned regarding journalists working in Gaza, conforming to a pattern of indifference to distinctions between militants or civilians in Israel's sanguinary targeting. By December 2023, the Committee to Protect Journalists was already declaring that the war in the Strip had been the deadliest ever recorded by the organisation for press members. (The number currently stands at over 190; the global total for 2020-23 was 165.) 'Israel is murdering the messengers,' concludes Qudah. 'Israel wiped out an entire news crew. It has made no claims that any of the other journalists were terrorists. That's murder. Plain and simple.' In a statement, Al Jazeera Media Network described the killings as 'yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom.' The order to kill 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 murder of al-Sharif and his colleagues by Israeli forces constituted the effective wiping out of Al Jazeera's team, one of the few able to offer consistent, unsmothered coverage about the IDF's remorseless campaign in Gaza. Since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, Israel has prohibited foreign reporters from entering Gaza except under strict invigilation by the Israeli military. Those accompanied by the IDF have been at the mercy of Israeli selectiveness as to where to go and barred from speaking to Palestinians. In a note to be published in the event of his death, al-Sharif stated that he 'lived the pain in all its details', tasting 'grief and loss repeatedly'. This did not deter him from conveying '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 also reflected on what images of sheer barbarity had failed to do, with 'the mangled bodies of our children and women' failing to move hearts or stop massacres. In dying along with his colleagues, al-Sharif had been butchered in a climate of hyper normalised violence, thinly veiled by the barbaric justifications of Israeli national security.
