Palestinian reporter Anas al-Sharif was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Sunday alongside four other journalists for Al Jazeera, as the media outlet condemned the attack as “premeditated”
An Al Jazeera journalist killed in an Israeli strike predicted his own death in a haunting message.
Reporter Anas al-Sharif, 28, was killed alongside four other Al Jazeera reporters in an Israeli strike close to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, according to the network. Al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibraim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa had been inside a tent assigned to journalists outside the hospital when it was attacked, Al Jazeera said.
Al Jazeera condemned the killings, while the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have claimed al-Sharif was a Hamas terrorist operative. In a last video uploaded to X/Twitter, loud explosions from Israel’s bombing could be heard landing in the background. It comes after NATO scrambled warplanes as Russia shoots down West’s F-16 fighter jet in Ukraine onslaught.
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Israel has repeatedly not allowed international journalists into Gaza while unaccompanied by the IDF. Reporting from among the Palestinians in Gaza is therefore reliant on local reporters.
In a message, written on April 6 and held until the event of his death, al-Sharif said he “lived the pain in all its details” and that he “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,” al-Sharif said in the message.
“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.”
Following al-Sharif’s death, Al Jazeera Media Network slammed the deaths as “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom.”
“This attack comes amid the catastrophic consequences of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has seen the relentless slaughter of civilians, forced starvation, and the obliteration of entire communities,” it said. “The order to assassinate Anas Al Sharif, one of Gaza’s bravest journalists, and his colleagues, is a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza.”
The IDF said in a statement shared on Sunday that claimed al-Sharif “posed” as an Al Jazeera journalist. “Al-Sharif was the head of a Hamas terrorist cell and advanced rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and IDF troops,” the statement said.
“Intelligence and documents from Gaza, including rosters, terrorist training lists and salary records, prove he was a Hamas operative integrated into Al Jazeera. A press badge isn’t a shield for terrorism.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based non-profit, previously said Israel had been “falsely alleging that he (al-Sharif) was a Hamas terrorist. From the beginning of the most recent war in Gaza up until July 30 at least 189 journalists and media workers, the majority of whom were Palestinians, have been killed, according to the International Federation of Journalists.