Anas
al-Sharif, prominent Al Jazeera correspondent, among five journalists killed in
Israeli airstrike on Gaza
Israel
admits deliberate attack on the journalist, known for frontline coverage, in a
strike on a tent outside al-Shifa hospital
Lorenzo
Tondo in Jerusalem
Mon 11
Aug 2025 09.10 BST
A
prominent Al Jazeera journalist who had previously been threatened by Israel
has been killed along with four colleagues in an Israeli airstrike.
Anas
al-Sharif, who was one of Al Jazeera’s most recognisable faces in Gaza, was
killed while inside a tent for journalists outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza
City on Sunday night. His funeral was held on Monday morning.
Seven
people in total were killed in the attack, including al-Sharif, Al Jazeera
correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed
Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, according to the Qatar-based broadcaster.
The
Israel Defense Force admitted the strike, claiming the reporter had “served as
the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organisation and was
responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF
forces”.
It
claimed it had intelligence and documents found in Gaza as proof but rights
advocates said he had been targeted for his frontline reporting on the Gaza war
and that Israel’s claim lacked evidence.
Calling
al-Sharif “one of Gaza’s bravest journalists,” Al Jazeera said the attack was
“a desperate attempt to silence voices in anticipation of the occupation of
Gaza.”
Last
month Israeli IDF spokesperson Avichai Adraee shared a video of al-Sharif on X
and accused him of being a member of Hamas’ military wing. At the time the UN
special rapporteur on freedom of expression, Irene Khan, called it “an
unsubstantiated claim” and a “blatant assault on journalists”.
In July,
al-Sharif told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that he lived with
the “feeling that I could be bombed and martyred at any moment”.
After the
attack, the CPJ said it was “appalled” to learn of the journalists’ deaths.
“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 regional director Sara Qudah.
“Journalists
are civilians and must never be targeted. Those responsible for these killings
must be held accountable.”
The
Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate condemned what it described as a “bloody
crime” of assassination.
In
January this year, after a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, al-Sharif drew
widespread attention when, during a live broadcast, he removed his body armour
while surrounded by dozens of Gaza residents celebrating the temporary halt in
hostilities.
A few
minutes before his death, al-Sharif posted on X: “Breaking: Intense,
concentrated Israeli bombardment using ‘fire belts’ is hitting the eastern and
southern areas of Gaza City.”
In a
final message, which Al Jazeera said had been written on 6 April and which was
posted to al-Sharif’s X account after his death, the reporter said that he had
“lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times,
yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or
falsification.”
“Allah
may bear witness against those who stayed silent, those who accepted our
killing, those who choked our breath, and whose hearts were unmoved by the
scattered remains of our children and women, doing nothing to stop the massacre
that our people have faced for more than a year and a half,” he continued.
The
28-year-old leaves behind a wife and two small children. His father was killed
by an Israeli strike on the family home in Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza City in
December 2023. At the time al-Sharif said he would continue to report and
refused to leave northern Gaza.
Another
Al Jazeera journalist in Gaza, Hani Mahmoud, said: “This is perhaps the hardest
thing I’m reporting about the past 22 months. I’m not far from al-Shifa
hospital, just one block away, and I could hear the massive explosion that took
place in the past half an hour or so, near al-Shifa hospital.
“I could
see it when it lit up the sky and, within moments, the news circulated that it
was the journalist camp at the main gate of the al-Shifa hospital.”
Al-Sharif
and his colleagues have been reporting from Gaza since the beginning of the
conflict.
“It’s
important to highlight that this attack is just a week after an Israeli
military official directly accused Anas and directly ran a campaign of
incitement on Al Jazeera and correspondents on the ground because of their
work, because of their relentless reporting on the starvation and the famine
and the malnutrition,” Mahmoud added.
Israel
has killed multiple Al Jazeera journalists and members of their families,
including Hossam Shabat, who was killed in March, and Ismail al-Ghoul and his
cameraman Rami al-Rifi, who were killed in August.
Chief
correspondent Wael al Dahdouh’s wife, son, daughter and grandson were killed in
October 2023 and he himself was injured in an attack weeks later that killed Al
Jazeera cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa.
Israel,
which does not allow foreign journalists into Gaza and which has targeted local
reporters, has killed 237 journalists since the war started on 7 October 2023,
according to Gaza’s government media office. The Committee to Protect
Journalists said at least 186 journalists have been killed in the Gaza
conflict. Israel denies deliberately targeting journalists.
With
Reuters and Agence France-Presse
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