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DOZENS OF GAZANS gathered today for the funeral of five Al Jazeera staff members and a sixth reporter killed in what the network has described as a “targeted assassination” by Israel outside Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital.
Mourners stood amid bombed-out buildings in the courtyard of Al-Shifa hospital to pay their respects to Anas al-Sharif, a prominent Al Jazeera correspondent aged 28, and four of his colleagues, killed on Sunday.
A sixth journalist, Mohammed Al-Khaldi who worked as a freelance reporter, was also killed in the strike that targeted the Al Jazeera team, according to the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya.
Their bodies, wrapped in white shrouds with their faces exposed, were carried through narrow alleys to their graves by mourners including men wearing blue journalists’ flak jackets.
Israel confirmed it had targeted Sharif, whom it labelled a “terrorist” affiliated with Hamas, saying he “posed as a journalist”.
Al Jazeera said its employees were hit in a tent set up for journalists outside the main gate of a hospital in Gaza City.
The four other staff members killed were Mohammed Qreiqeh, also a correspondent, and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa.
A total of seven people died in the attack.
Tanaiste Simon Harris said Israel’s killing of journalists in Gaza was “silencing of some of the few journalistic voices left” in the region.
SIPTU has called the killings an atrocity that is an attack on all media workers.
The National Union of Journalists held a protest at the Spire in Dublin today to condemn the killing of reporters and camera operators in Gaza by Israel.
Sharif was one of the channel’s most recognisable faces working on the ground in Gaza, providing daily reports on the now 22-month-old war.
Shortly before his death, Sharif had posted on X about intense Israeli bombardment, warning of so-called “fire belts” in parts of Gaza City.
In a final pre-written message, published after his death, he said:
“If these words of mine reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. Do not forget Gaza, and do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.”
The journalist, who leaves behind his wife and two young children, also wrote that he “never hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or misrepresentation.”
“Not even the mangled bodies of our children and women moved their hearts or stopped the massacre that our people have been subjected to for over a year and a half.”
Al Jazeera condemned the killings as “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”, saying al-Sharif and his colleagues were among the last remaining voices documenting the realities of life in Gaza.
The broadcaster accused Israel of killing ten of its journalists since October 2023, along with many of their family members.
The Israeli military claimed al-Sharif “posed as a journalist” and “served as the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organisation”, alleging he was involved in rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and troops.
It said it possessed documents proving his affiliation, although press freedom advocates say no credible evidence has been produced.
It published a graphic showing what it said was a list of Hamas operatives in northern Gaza, including Sharif’s name, as well as an image of him emblazoned with the word: “Eliminated”.
Israeli officials have made similar claims after other journalists were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza.
In May, they described murdered Gaza journalist Hassan Aslih as a “terrorist from the Hamas Khan Yunis brigade.”
Aslih was the head of the Alam24 news outlet and was specifically targeted by the Israeli military when it bombed a media camp near Nasser Hospital on 7 April.
Two other journalists, Ahmed Mansur and Hilmi al-Faqaawi, were killed in that bombing.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which last month warned that al-Sharif was in “acute” danger, condemned the strike yesterday.
“Israel’s pattern of labelling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,” said CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa director Sara Qudah.
UN special rapporteur Irene Khan also criticised the targeting of al-Sharif, warning last month that journalists in Gaza were being killed on the basis of “unsubstantiated claims” linking them to Hamas.
Rights groups say Israel has killed more than 200 journalists and media workers since October 2023, making Gaza the deadliest conflict for reporters since records began.
The CPJ says nearly 70 per cent of all journalists killed globally last year died in Gaza, mostly at Israel’s hands.
Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud, who was one block away when the strike hit, called reporting on al-Sharif’s death “the hardest thing I have had to do in the past 22 months of war”.
He said the journalists were killed “because of their relentless reporting on the starvation and malnutrition” in Gaza.
The killings came just hours after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to allow some foreign media into Gaza for the first time in the war.
Additional reporting from Sophie Finn.
With reporting from AFP
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