Image source, AFP/Getty Images
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- Author, Amy Walker
- Author's title, BBC News
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Five jazeera chain journalists and an independent local reporter died this Sunday in an Israeli attack near the Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
The correspondents anas to Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, in addition to the cameraword Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, were in a tent for journalists at the main entrance of the hospital when it was attacked, reported Al Jazeera, news chain based in Qatar.
The sixth journalist was identified as Mohammed al Khaldi, the news agency reported Reuters. In total there were seven deceased people.
The Qatari channel issued a statement in which it described the fact of “selective murder” and “another flagrant and premeditated attack on press freedom.”
Shortly after, the Israeli army confirmed that he had attacked Anas al Sharif, 28, and accused him of “exercised as head of a Hamas terrorist cell”, without evidence to support him.
The Israeli armed forces did not mention the other journalists who died.
Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, also described what happened as “deliberate attacks against journalists by Israel in the Gaza Strip.”
Al Thani affirmed in the social network X that “these crimes exceed all imagination” and reveal “the inability of the international community and its laws to stop this tragedy.”
The United Nations Human Rights Office condemned the murder of the six journalists and described it as “serious violation of international humanitarian law.”
“Never seen before”
Image source, Getty Images
Throughout the war, Israel has not allowed the entry of foreign journalists in Gaza to freely inform. Therefore, many media depend on local reporters for coverage.
According to the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), an International Civil Organization for the Defense of Press Freedom, 186 journalists have died since the beginning of Israel's military offensive in Gaza in October 2023.
The editorial director of Al Jazeera, Mohamed Moawad, told the BBC that the Sharif was an accredited journalist who had become “the only voice” so that the world knew what was happening in the Gaza Strip.
“They were attacked in their tent, they were not covering from the front,” Moawad said about the Israeli attack.
“The fact is that the Israeli government wants to silence the coverage of any information channel from inside Gaza,” he added.
“This is something I had not seen before in modern history.”
Moments before the death of Al Sharif, publications in his X account warned of the intense Israeli bombing in the city of Gaza.
Image source, AFP/Getty Images
“Testament and final message”
In a message posted after his death, Sharif left his “will and final message.”
“I have delivered all my effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people,” he said.
“I have lived pain in all its details, I have experienced suffering and loss many times, but I never hesitated to transmit the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification,” he added.
Al Sharif also paid tribute to the “people of Palestine”, the “Crown jewel of the Muslim world, the beat of each free person in this world.”
“I entrust your people, their aggrieved and innocent children who never had time to dream or live in security and peace,” his letter continued.
“Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, destroyed and scattered by the walls,” he added.
In two videos of the consequences of the attack in which journalists died, which have been confirmed by BBC Verify, you can see men carrying the bodies of those who died. Some shout the name of Mohammed Qreiqeh, and a man who wears a press vest says that one of the bodies is that of Anas al Sharif.
Image source, Reuters
Justify attacks on journalists
The Israeli army statement accused Al Sharif of impersonating journalist and being “responsible for promoting rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and troops from Israel's defense forces.”
He said he had already “revealed intelligence information” confirmed by his military affiliation, among which there were “lists of terrorist training courses.”
The BBC could not verify that information independently.
“Before the attack, measures were taken to mitigate civilians, including the use of precise ammunition, ancient air surveillance and intelligence,” the statement added.
Last month, the Jazeera chain, the United Nations and the CPJ issued separate communications asking for the protection of Al Sharif.
The chain denounced “relentless efforts” by the Israeli army for an “in -course incitement campaign aimed at the correspondents and jazeera journalists in the Gaza Strip.”
“The chain considers this incitement a dangerous attempt to justify attacks on its journalists in the field,” he added.
The news of the death of Al Jazeera journalists comes after the Israeli government approved the beginning of an offensive for the taking of the city of Gaza, which has raised criticism from several countries, protests within Israel and concern of international organizations for a possible aggravation of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.
Additional report by Shayan
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