Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif was killed along with four colleagues in an Israeli strike on a tent used by reporters outside Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, the network reported Sunday.
Seven people were killed in the attack, including Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa. The attack was confirmed by the Israeli military and several news outlets, including the Associated Press.
Israeli military officials had alleged that the 28-year-old al-Sharif was a Hamas operative involved in rocket attacks. Al Jazeera rejected the accusation.
Al-Sharif was a well-known correspondent for Al Jazeera Arabic who reported extensively from northern Gaza since the start of the war. Moments before his death, he posted on X that Israeli forces were carrying out intense bombardment on the eastern and southern parts of Gaza City; in his final video, loud explosions and flashes from missile fire could be seen and heard in the background.
“This is my will and my final message,” Al-Sharif wrote in a posthumously published X post on Sunday. “If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.”
Al-Sharif – and Al Jazeera – was a controversial figure even among some in Gaza, where some locals reportedly were upset that he would not cover their protests against Hamas.
Photos published by Getty Images photographers on Sunday showed al-Sharif’s badly burned and damaged body being tended to by Palestinian emergency workers.
Al Jazeera has accused the Israeli military of waging a “campaign of incitement” against its reporters in Gaza, singling out al-Sharif in particular. Last month, the Committee to Protect Journalists said it was concerned for al-Sharif’s safety.
More than 200 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since the war began in October, according to rights groups, including several of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera’s journalists and their relatives. Israel has frequently accused Palestinian reporters of belonging to militant groups, a charge critics say is aimed at undermining coverage of its actions in the war.
