Media advocacy groups blast Israeli murder of Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza - War on Gaza
Dismissing Israel's claim that al-Sharif was a "terrorist" affiliated with Hamas, the press freedom campaign group told AFP he was "one of the most famous journalists from the Gaza Strip (and) the voice of the sufferng Israel has imposed on Palestinians in Gaza".
The NGO "strongly and angrily condemns the acknowledged murder by the Israeli army" of al-Sharif and other journalists in a Sunday strike on their tent in Gaza City, it added.
Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera said Sunday that five of its journalists had been killed in an Israeli strike.
Al-Sharif, 28, was one of the channel's most recognisable faces working on the ground in Gaza, providing daily reports in regular coverage.
He was killed alongside fellow correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, Al Jazeera said.
The Israeli military said it had targeted al-Sharif, saying he "posed as a journalist" but was in fact "the head of a terrorist cell... responsible for advancing rocket attacks."
RSF called the Israeli allegations "baseless".
Almost 200 journalists have been killed in the war Israel launched on Gaza , according to RSF.
The RSF has filed four complaints against Israel at the International Criminal Court for alleged "war crimes committed against journalists in Gaza".
"In (Sunday's) deliberate attack, the Israeli army reproduced a known method already tested, notably against al-Jazeera journalists," RSF said, pointing to the killings of two reporters on July 31 last year.
Israel labelled one of those men, Ismail al-Ghoul, a "terrorist".
RSF called on other countries to intervene, saying the UN Security Council should meet to insist on protection of journalists in conflict zones.
"Without strong action from the international community to stop the Israeli army... we're likely to witness more such extrajudicial murders of media professionals," RSF said.
In tandem, another media advocacy group, the Committee to Protect Journalists, slammed on Monday the Israeli strike that killed several Al Jazeera staff in Gaza overnight, saying journalists should never be targeted in war.
"Journalists are civilians. They must never be targeted in war. And to do so is a war crime," Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), told AFP.
The CPJ in July called for the protection of Anas al-Sharif, one of the journalists killed in the Israeli strike, after an Israeli military spokesman claimed he was a militant, accusing Israel of a "pattern" of labelling journalists militants "without providing credible evidence".
"International law is clear that active combatants are the only justified targets in a war setting," Ginsberg said.
"So unless the IDF can demonstrate that Anas al-Sharif was still an active combatant, then there is no justification for his killing," she said, using an acronym for the Israeli military.
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