Israel’s military (IDF) has stepped up its bombing of Gaza City, and already there are mounting civilian casualties and an international outcry, especially after a well-known regional reporter and his crew were killed in a weekend strike
Five journalists and staff members working for Al Jazeera were among seven total people killed in a late Sunday night strike. They were sheltered in a press-marked tent near Al-Shifa hospital, various sources indicate.
The Hamas-run Government Media Office in Gaza has condemned the attack on the press group as “deliberate and premeditated”. It’s identified prominent Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif as among the dead. The 28-year-old Al Jazeera Arabic journalist was known to have reported extensively from northern Gaza, and recently Israel identified him as among six ‘compromised’ journalists from Al Jazeera who have alleged ties with Hamas. The network has said Israel is falsely seeking to justify its war crimes against journalists.
Also among the dead weere Mohammed Qraiqeh and three photographers: Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed Noufal.
However, Israel is claiming these were military targets and not journalists. The NY Times writes, “The Israeli military confirmed that it had conducted a strike targeting one of the men killed, whom it accused of being a Hamas fighter posing as a reporter, an allegation that he and the network had rejected.”
The United Nations is not accepting Israel’s defense of its actions, instead calling the attack a “serious violation of international humanitarian law.”
The UN issued a statement on X saying, “We condemn the Israeli military’s killing of six Palestinian journalists by targeting their tent — a grave breach of international humanitarian law,” and emphasized that “Israel must uphold its obligation to protect all civilians, including journalists.”
The UN further said at least 242 Palestinian journalists have died in Gaza since October 7, 2023, and is urging greater security and protection for journalists in the midst of the conflict. “Israel must respect and protect all civilians, including journalists,” it said. Funerals for the men are already underway on Monday.
As for Anas Al-Sharif, the IDF alleges he was leading a Hamas cell. The Qatar-based Al Jazeera network is pushing back:
Meron Rapoport, a veteran Israeli journalist and editor of the Local Call news site, has said the Israeli military’s accusation that Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif was a Hamas member “doesn’t make sense at all”.
“The Israeli explanations are, at best, very lacking,” Rapoport told Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv. He said that if the claims were true, Israel would have been expected to have targeted or arrested al-Sharif a long time ago.
He said Israel likely targeted al-Sharif now because of two main factors – first, his important role in “telling the world that there is famine in Gaza”, which “really hurt Israel internationally”; and, second, because of the planned upcoming invasion of Gaza City, which Israel wants to minimise coverage of.
Al Jazeera offices in Israel and the West Bank have already long ago been raided and shut down by Israeli security forces. Israeli leaders have long conisdered the Mideast regional channel to be adversarial.
Journalist Anas al-Sharif along with four other Al Jazeera staff have been killed by an Israeli attack which targeted a tent for the press outside al-Shifa Hospital’s main gate. pic.twitter.com/hfwWdDCCji
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 11, 2025
It was only in July that Al Jazeera warned that Israel threatened to directly target its correspondent Al-Sharif:
Al Jazeera Media Network has denounced the Israeli military for what it called a “campaign of incitement” against its reporters in the Gaza Strip, including most notably Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Anas al-Sharif.
In a statement on Friday, Al Jazeera said it “strongly condemns and denounces these relentless efforts, which have consistently incited against its staff since the beginning of its coverage of the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza”.
In May of 2022, the IDF shot dead an even more well-known Al Jazeera journalist. Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian Christian, was killed while covering the siege of Jenin refugee camp. She had been wearing a press vest at the time and was huddled with other journalists at the moment she was shot.
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