By Ephrat Livni
An Israeli strike near a hospital in Gaza City on Sunday night killed four Al Jazeera journalists, the network said, and Gazan health officials reported at least one additional fatality.
The Israeli military confirmed that it had conducted a strike targeting one of the men killed, whom it accused of being a Hamas fighter posing as a reporter, an allegation that he and the network had rejected.
The Government Media Office in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, said in a statement that a strike on a “journalists’ tent near Al-Shifa Hospital” killed two reporters — Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qraiqeh — and three photographers — Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed Noufal — and called the attack “deliberate and premeditated.”
The director of Al Shifa hospital, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, told The New York Times that an Israeli drone strike on a tent in front of Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, which was housing journalists, killed seven people, including five journalists and two others, and wounded eight.
Al Jazeera reported that four of the five journalists who were killed in the strike worked for its network.
In a statement, the network condemned what it called “the premeditated assassination” of correspondents and photographers, calling the attack “a desperate attempt to silence voices in anticipation of the occupation of Gaza.”
The Israeli military in a statement on Sunday said that it had struck in Gaza City without specifying where, and said that it had targeted “the terrorist Anas al-Sharif, who posed as a journalist for the Al Jazeera network,” and had taken steps “to mitigate harm to civilians.”
The military accused Mr. al-Sharif of being “the head of a terrorist cell” that was “responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians” and soldiers.
The Israeli statement said that it had previously “disclosed intelligence information and many documents found in the Gaza Strip, confirming his military affiliation to Hamas.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists said last month that it was “gravely worried” about his safety.Credit…AFPTV, via Agence France-Presse
Mr. al-Sharif, a well-known correspondent for Al Jazeera, was among six of the network’s reporters based in Gaza whom Israel accused in October 2024 of being fighters for Hamas and Palestinian Jihad.
At the time, the Israel military distributed what it said were documents seized from Gaza that showed membership lists, phone directories and salary slips for members of the Qassam Brigades and the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wings of the two groups.
The lists included names matching those reporters.
But Al Jazeera and Mr. al-Sharif denied the accusation, with the network saying the allegations were “fabricated.”
Last month, the Committee to Protect Journalists said it was “gravely worried” about Mr. al-Sharif’s safety, accusing the Israeli military of targeting him with a “smear campaign, which he believes is a precursor to his assassination.”
The organization said that the Israeli military had “stepped up” its campaign to discredit Mr. al-Sharif “since the journalist cried on air while reporting on starvation in Gaza.”
Israel has long had an antagonistic relationship with Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based broadcaster, and the tensions have only escalated during the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
While other major media outlets have been blocked from entering the enclave by Israel and Egypt, Al Jazeera has managed to position numerous reporters on the ground, providing a steady stream of stories about the harrowing conditions for civilians amid mass privation and hunger.
More than 61,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to local health officials who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Al Jazeera has accused Israel of trying to conceal the brutality of the war. Israel says that the outlet supports Hamas and that some of its journalists are themselves militants, an allegation the broadcaster has strongly rejected.
Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have long called the network a “mouthpiece” for Hamas.
Last year, Israel shut down Al Jazeera in the country and shuttered its offices on security grounds, and Israeli forces later raided the channel’s offices in the West Bank.
The Israeli military last summer killed Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza, in an airstrike that also took the life of another reporter.
The Israeli military claimed Mr. al-Ghoul was a member of Hamas’s military wing.
Mr. al-Sharif was posting on social media until shortly before he died.
“Relentless bombardment,” he wrote on X in what would be one of his final messages.
“For two hours, the Israeli aggression has intensified on Gaza City.”
The strike on Mr. al-Sharif and the others in Gaza City came after Israel’s security cabinet on Friday voted to intensify its military operations in the area and to take over the city, where much of Gaza’s population has been sheltering after repeated displacement orders since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people in Israel, led to the abduction of about 250 and set off the war in Gaza.
Foreign journalists have not been allowed to enter Gaza to report independently from the enclave, so most of the reporting emerging from the war has come from Palestinian reporters.
In recent weeks, as a hunger crisis has gripped Gaza, and reporters on the ground have talked about losing the strength to work, news organizations have called on Israel to let in more aid and reporters.
Mr. al-Sharif described himself as “drowning in hunger” late last month.
Source – New York Times
(vitalnewsngr.com)
