The United Nations and media rights groups condemned Israel on Monday after an airstrike killed an Al Jazeera news team in Gaza, as Palestinians mourned the victims and Israel accused one of them of being a Hamas operative.
Crowds gathered at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City to honour 28-year-old correspondent Anas al-Sharif and four colleagues killed on Sunday. Hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya confirmed a sixth journalist, freelancer Mohammed Al-Khaldi, also died in the strike. Mourners, some wearing blue press vests, carried the bodies wrapped in white shrouds through Gaza’s streets for burial.
Israel acknowledged targeting Sharif, calling him a Hamas “terrorist” responsible for facilitating rocket attacks, and released documents claiming to show his enlistment with Hamas in 2013 and other details of his alleged role. Al Jazeera said the strike hit a tent used by journalists outside Al-Shifa, killing Sharif, correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa.
According to local journalists, Sharif had briefly worked in Hamas’s communication office early in his career before joining Al Jazeera, where he became one of its most recognisable reporters covering the 22-month Gaza war.
Media watchdogs and the UN human rights office called the strike a “grave breach of international humanitarian law.” Sharif’s previously written farewell note, shared online, urged the world “not to forget Gaza.” The Committee to Protect Journalists had earlier warned Israel against targeting him, accusing the military of a pattern of branding Gaza reporters as militants without evidence.
This backlash is the result of Killing of Al Jazeera Journalist by Israel
