Montreal colleges dispute findings of government investigation
Benoit Morin says the months-long probe exacerbated tensions at Vanier College, which has been under scrutiny since last fall due to complaints that diverging perspectives on the Israel-Hamas war had created an unsafe atmosphere on campus.
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CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
Human rights advocate says response to killing of journalists in Gaza ‘weak at best'
Calls are growing for an independent investigation into the death of Al Jazeera and independent journalists who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City. Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, says the attacks qualify as war crimes, and tells Power & Politics what action her organization wants to see from international governments in response to the targeting of journalists.
CTV News
2 hours ago
- CTV News
Anas Al-Sharif became the face of the war in Gaza for millions. Then Israel killed him
This undated recent image, taken from video broadcast by the Qatari-based television station Al Jazeera, shows the network's Arabic-language Gaza correspondent, Anas al-Sharif, reporting on camera in Gaza. Al-Sharif and four other Al Jazeera staff members were killed by an Israeli drone strike on their tent in Gaza City shortly before midnight on Sunday. (Al Jazeera via AP) As a ceasefire in Gaza took hold in January, Anas Al-Sharif began removing his protective gear live on television, piece by piece, while a jubilant crowd cheered, hoping the day marked the end of the suffering of 2 million Palestinians in the enclave. Nearly seven months later, Israel killed the Al Jazeera journalist and four of his colleagues in a strike in Gaza City. One of the most well-known Palestinian journalists in Gaza – and one of dozens to be killed by Israel during the war – Al-Sharif's death has ignited international condemnation and calls for accountability. The 28-year-old rose to prominence as the face of the Gaza story for millions while Israel has blocked international media outlets from accessing the territory. Little known before the war, he quickly turned into a household name in the Arab world for his daily coverage of the conflict and its humanitarian toll. His reports provided first-hand accounts of critical moments in the conflict, including the short-lived ceasefires in the territory, the release of Israeli hostages and harrowing stories of the starvation that have shocked the world. Al Jazeera recruited Al-Sharif in December 2023 after his social media footage of Israeli strikes in his hometown of Jabalya went viral. Then a professional cameraman, he was initially reluctant to appear on air but was persuaded by colleagues to front his reports, an experience he called 'indescribable.' 'I had never even appeared on a local channel let alone an international one,' he was cited as saying in the Sotour media outlet in February. 'The person who was happiest was my late father.' His father was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Jabalya shortly after Al-Sharif began appearing on Al Jazeera. A father of two, he appeared on the channel nearly every day since he started his job. 'We (journalists) slept in hospitals, in streets, in vehicles, in ambulances, in displacement shelters, in warehouses, with displaced people. I slept in 30 to 40 different places,' he told the outlet. After he took off his protective gear on air in January, crowds lifted him on their shoulders in celebration. 'I am taking off the helmet that tired me, and this armor that has become an extension of my body,' he said live on Al Jazeera at the time as he paid tribute to colleagues killed and injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza. Al-Sharif's reports attracted the attention of the Israeli military, which, he claimed, warned him to stop his work for Al Jazeera, a network that had already lost several staff members to Israeli actions in Gaza, including Ismail Al Ghoul, killed last year, and Hossam Shabat, killed in March. 'At the end, (the Israeli military) sent me voice notes on my WhatsApp number… an intelligence officer told me… 'you have minutes to leave the location you are in, go to the south, and stop reporting for Al Jazeera'… I was reporting from a hospital live.' 'Minutes later, the room I was reporting from was struck,' he said. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) didn't respond to CNN's request for comment. Why now? Israel first accused Al-Sharif of being linked to Hamas 10 months ago. Why it decided to target him now is unclear. In a statement confirming his targeted killing, the IDF accused Al-Sharif of leading a Hamas cell in Gaza that orchestrated 'rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF forces.' In October 2024, the Israeli military published documents it claimed showed 'unequivocal proof' of Al-Sharif's ties to Hamas and named five other Al Jazeera journalists who it said were part of the militant group. An Israeli army spokesperson said in a video on X that Al-Sharif joined a Hamas battalion in 2013, and was injured in training in 2017, an accusation denied by the journalist himself and Irene Khan, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression. 'I reaffirm: I, Anas Al-Sharif, am a journalist with no political affiliations. My only mission is to report the truth from the ground – as it is, without bias,' he wrote last month. 'At a time when a deadly famine is ravaging Gaza, speaking the truth has become, in the eyes of the occupation, a threat.' Following the journalist's killing, the IDF's Arabic spokesperson published several pictures of Al-Sharif with Yahya Sinwar, the late Hamas leader who is believed to have masterminded the October 7, 2023 attack that left around 1,200 people in Israel dead and roughly 250 more taken hostage. Israel killed Sinwar in October 2024. Al-Sharif was in a tent with other journalists near the entrance to the Al-Shifa Hospital when he was killed on Sunday, according to hospital director Dr. Mohammad Abu Salmiya. The tent was marked with a 'Press' sign, Abu Salmiya told CNN. The strike killed at least seven people, Salmiya added. Al Jazeera said correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and photojournalists Ibrahim Al Thaher and Moamen Aliwa were also killed in the strike, as well as Mohammed Noufal, another staff member. 'Pattern of accusing journalists' Al-Sharif's killing prompted condemnations from rights groups and officials. The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was 'appalled,' adding that Israel has 'a longstanding, documented pattern of accusing journalists of being terrorists without providing any credible proof.' The CPJ said 192 journalists have been killed since the beginning of the war nearly two years ago, adding: '184 of those journalists are Palestinians killed by Israel.' Since the start of the war, Israel has not allowed international journalists to enter Gaza to report independently. Just hours before the strike that killed Al-Sharif and his colleagues, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said foreign journalists would now be allowed into Gaza, but only with Israeli military approval and accompanied by them, the same embed policy that has been in place since the beginning of the war. Al-Sharif was buried in Gaza on Monday in a funeral that attracted large crowds of Palestinian mourners. Anticipating his own death, Al-Sharif had written a will that was released by his colleagues after he was killed. 'I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification… If I die, I die steadfast upon my principles,' he wrote. 'Do not forget Gaza … and do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.' Mostafa Salem, CNN
CBC
2 hours ago
- CBC
Al Jazeera journalist killed in targeted strike was 'loved by everyone,' says colleague
When Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud saw an airstrike lighting up the sky above Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, he knew immediately that his colleagues were dead. In a targeted strike on Sunday, Israeli forces killed five Al Jazeera journalists who had been operating out of a tent in front of the beleaguered hospital. Israel says the strike successfully targeted Hamas militants, but press freedom advocates say it was meant to silence journalists on the front lines of the bloody conflict in Gaza. Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, 28, was killed alongside correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa. Mohammad Al-Khaldi, a local freelance reporter, was also killed in the airstrike, medics at Al Shifa Hospital said. Israel accused al-Sharif of heading up a Hamas cell that was "responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians," citing intelligence and documents found in Gaza as evidence. Al Jazeera, the Committee to Protect Journalists and United Nations Special Rapporteur Irene Khan have all said Israel's allegations about al-Sharif are unsubstantiated. Mahmoud says Israel has been amping up its rhetoric against Al Jazeera in recent months, painting the Qatar-based media outlet's Palestinian journalists as terrorists, with a particular focus on al-Sharif. Mahmoud visited al-Sharif and his other colleagues in the tent a few hours before they were killed. Here is part of his conversation with As It Happens guest host Aarti Pole. What did you see and hear of this strike that killed your colleagues? I was actually a block away from the bomb site, where the tent is located. As you know, many of us are working from the street. We set up these makeshift tents because all the buildings that we've once occupied and had our offices [in] have been destroyed. So our colleagues from Al Jazeera Arabic had their tents right in front of the main gate of Al Shifa Hospital, the road leading to the emergency department. That's why they had always the opportunity to capture all these images coming from Al Shifa hospital of scores of injuries being transferred to the hospital. Just a couple hours before it happened, I was just right at that place. I finished up a report on health facilities and the dire situations inside these health facilities, and I stopped by the tent. We chatted. We giggled a bit. We even talked about when all of this is going to end, we should take a long break. And we insisted on long, because it's been 22 months of relentless coverage, and both Anas and Mohammed, the two correspondents from Al Jazeera Arabic, agreed that, yes, there needs to be a break after all of this. I left the tent [and] went back to our vehicle on a good note that, God's willing, it will end soon. Hopefully, we will hear a resumption of ceasefire talks rather than the ongoing concerning news of reoccupying the whole Gaza Strip. We wished each other the best of luck and to be safe and protected. But luck was not on their side this time. So then how did you hear news that there had been this airstrike and that your friend had been killed? The attack was very massive. I could see it lighting up the sky above Al Shifa, and I [had] seen the smoke and I knew it's got to be the only place that the Israeli military marked as a target, particularly … after a week intensifying the smear campaign, the incitement campaign against Al Jazeera, against the crew members on the ground, the correspondence, the work that we are doing. They all joined together in a very sinister smear campaign and inciting campaign calling him names, calling him a terrorist or calling him as an affiliate of Hamas and its military wing, but without offering any substantial evidence whatsoever. For every journalist that was killed, the Israeli military put the same exact statement that they are Hamas members, but failed to provide any concrete evidence whatsoever. I'm hoping that you might also be able to describe for our listeners what Anas was like when the cameras were off. I know he had a wife and he leaves behind two young children, too. He had family to take care of, a family that [has] been on constant movement, being displaced more than one time from one place to another. When he was off camera, pretty much he did the same exact thing that we did — searching for food, searching for water, making sure the shelter is safe for his wife, for his mother, for his two little ones. He was also very, very loved by everyone because he talked about people. He reported about their stories. He reported about their suffering and the challenges that they faced every day of their life for the past 22 months. It was not a surprise to see a large crowd turning up for his funeral at the Shifa hospital. It filled up the yard of the hospital and mostly from people who knew him, people who supported them, and assisted them throughout this hardship. We know that Anas was one of a few journalists who were killed in this particular strike. How do you carry on knowing that risk is so near? I've always been saying that we are steps away from death, and it feels more imminent right now because this is a systematic campaign of getting rid of all the voices that amplify the voices of Palestinians and that it's suppressing the voices of the criticism, the voices that report on the unfolding horror of this genocide. What we report on is only the tip of the iceberg of what we see and document every single day. There are scenes that we cannot get on the screen because they are so graphic. So it's only five to 10 per cent of what we experience on a daily basis that gets on the screen of Al Jazeera. Not everything, because it would be outrageous to show some of the graphic scenes and footage that we shoot on a daily basis or the reports that we are doing. I don't feel safe. And the same thing applies to the two million Palestinians across the Gaza Strip. Because Gaza is unprotected ... under the grind of this brutal war machine. There is no guarantee that this interview is going to finish and nothing is going to happen to me. There's no guarantee that in the middle of this interview something isn't going to happen. We just live minute-by-minute now.
