Al Jazeera said an Israeli airstrikes killed its correspondent Anas al-Sharif and four other staffers in Gaza City.
The broadcaster said Al-Sharif, 28, one of the channel’s most prominent voices in Gaza, was killed alongside reporter Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa “in a targeted Israeli strike on a tent housing journalists in Gaza City.”
The director of Shifa hospital, Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya, told The Independent that in total seven were killed in strike which hit a tent where they were sheltering within the Shifa medical complex in Gaza City .
The Committee to Protect Journalists warned last month that it was gravely concerned for al-Sharif’s safety as he was being “targeted by an Israeli military smear campaign” and that the unfounded accusations “represent an effort to manufacture consent to kill Al-Sharif.”
Harrowing footage allegedly taken at the scene and share online showed people, including journalists, screaming as they pulling partially charred, blood-soaked bodies away from the scene.
“The Al Jazeera journalists’ tent in front of Al-Shifa Medical Complex was bombed. Anas Al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, and four journalists working with them were killed, along with another bystander,” Dr Salmiya said.
“Part of the hospital’s emergency department was also damaged.
“The tent was directly bombed and they arrived at the emergency department with severe injuries,” he added.
Al Jazeera said that Israel has killed 10 of its journalists in total since Israel launched its offensive on Gaza in 2023 -including : Samer Abudaqqa, Ismael Al-Ghoul, Ahmed Al-Louh, Hossam Shabat and Hamza Dahdouh, son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, as well as many of the family members of Al Jazeera journalists.
Israel’s military claimed in a statement late on Sunday that al-Sharif had “posed as a journalist” and alleged he was with Hamas militant group, and was responsible for “advancing rocket attacks”.
But the Committee to Protect Journalists has repeatedly called for international protection of al-Sharif saying that he had been “a key source of news from Gaza for international audiences since the war began more than 650 days ago.” They had warned that he was at threat of being killed by Israel.
“We are deeply alarmed by the repeated threats made by Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee against Al Jazeera’s Gaza correspondent Anas Al-Sharif and call on the international community to protect him,” CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah said two weeks ago.
She added that it was not the first time he had been targeted by the military “but the danger to his life is now acute.”
“These latest unfounded accusations represent an effort to manufacture consent to kill Al-Sharif,” she added.
