Israel kills 5 Al Jazeera staff in Gaza, alleges Hamas role: report
Global Times
By Global Times Published: Aug 11, 2025 11:23 AM
Al Jazeera on Monday confirmed that its journalist Anas al-Sharif was killed alongside four colleagues in a targeted Israeli strike on a tent housing journalists in Gaza City.
Seven people were killed in a strike on a tent located outside the main gate of Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital late Sunday. They included Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa, Al Jazeera reported.
Al Jazeera Media Network said on Monday that it "condemns in the strongest terms the targeted assassination of its correspondents." The news network said that Israel has killed 10 Al Jazeera staff since the start of war on Gaza.
Palestinian civil defense sources told the Xinhua News Agency that the Israeli army directly targeted the journalists' tent, killing four of them, while the fifth victim remained unidentified as his body "was turned into pieces."
The director of the hospital in Gaza City said the strike appears to have targeted them directly.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) later said it had killed Anas Al-Sharif in Gaza City in a strike, claiming that he was affiliated with Hamas, according to Xinhua.
"Anas Al-Sharif served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas and was responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops," it alleged, according to Xinhua.
It said documents found showed his affiliation with Hamas, including "personnel rosters, lists of training courses, phone directories, and salary records."
However, in a statement, the Committee to Protect Journalists, which in July urged the international community to protect Al Sharif, said Israel had provided no evidence to support its allegations against him, Reuters reported.
"Today's killing of four journalists in #Gaza includes Anas Al-Sharif, one of Al Jazeera's best-known reporters and one of several whom Israel had previously alleged were members of Hamas without providing evidence. Most recently, Al-Sharif had reported on the starvation that he and his colleagues were experiencing because of Israel's refusal to allow sufficient food aid into Gaza," the Committee to Protect Journalists wrote in an X post on Monday.
Muhammed Shehada, an analyst at the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, told Al Jazeera that there was "zero evidence" that al-Sharif took part in any hostilities. "His entire daily routine was standing in front of a camera from morning to evening."
The Government Media Office in Gaza has said that the deliberate killing of five Al Jazeera staff has brought the total number of journalists killed by Israel since the war began to 237.
"It's not the first time we've seen journalists being the main target of the Israeli military. It's like they're being punished for the work they are doing, for the honest work that they are doing, for just giving the truth as it is, bringing it to the screen," Al Jazeera reporter Hani Mahmound wrote.
"That's something that the Israeli military political leadership does not like, because it changes a lot of the narrative. It changes how you perceive things on the ground. So it's not just coupled with the fear campaign and the incitement campaign against Al Jazeera and its correspondents on the ground, but it's also directed at anyone who dares to raise their voice and to criticize all the acts on the ground, the racist acts and the genocidal acts on the ground," he added.
Shortly before being killed, Al-Sharif, who has 556,000 followers on X, posted a video on the platform showing Gaza's night skies lit red by bombardment and filled with the sound of explosions. "Relentless bombardment," he wrote. "For two hours, the Israeli aggression has intensified on Gaza City."
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