Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif has been killed alongside four colleagues in a targeted Israeli attack on a tent housing journalists in Gaza City.
Seven people were killed in the attack on the tent located outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital late on Sunday evening.
They include Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, reports Al Jazeera.
Shortly before being killed, al-Sharif, a well-known 28-year-old Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who had reportedly extensively from northern Gaza, wrote on X that Israel had launched intense, concentrated bombardment – also known as “fire belts” – on the eastern and southern parts of Gaza City.
In his last video, the loud booms of Israel’s intensive missile bombing can be heard in the background as the dark sky is lit in a flash of orange light.
In a final message, written on April 6, to be published in the event of his death, al-Sharif said he “lived the pain in all its details” and “tasted grief and loss repeatedly”.
“Despite that, I never hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or misrepresentation, hoping that God would witness those who remained silent, those who accepted our killing, and those who suffocated our very breaths,” he said.
“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.”
The reporter also expressed sorrow for having had to leave his wife, Bayan, behind, and for not seeing his son, Salah, and daughter, Sham, grow up.
In a statement, Al Jazeera Media Network denounced the killings, calling them “a clear and deliberate assault on press freedom.”
In a statement confirming the deliberate killing of al-Sharif, Israel’s military accused the journalist of heading a Hamas cell and “advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and [Israeli] troops”.
It also alleged that it had documents providing “unequivocal proof” of his involvement with the Palestinian group.
Muhammed Shehada, an analyst at the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, said 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,” he told Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera, which has accused Israeli authorities of fabricating evidence to link its staff to Hamas, had recently denounced Israel’s military for waging a “campaign of incitement” against its reporters in the Gaza Strip, including al-Sharif.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in early July that more than 200 journalists had been killed in Gaza since the war began, including several Al Jazeera journalists.
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