Anas al-Sharif None
UN secretary general António Guterres has called for an independent investigation into Israel’s killing of six journalists on Sunday.
So what? At least 242 journalists have been killed since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, according to the UN. This makes it the deadliest conflict for media workers on record. Last week’s strike outside Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital drew international condemnation because
the dead included prominent Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, a 28-year-old known as the “voice” of Gaza;
it was the deadliest single strike on journalists of the war; and
Israel admitted it had deliberately targeted al-Sharif.
Truth-tellers. International reporters are banned by Israel from entering Gaza, so it has fallen to local journalists to report on the enclave’s suffering. As their numbers dwindle, so does the amount of news that reaches the outside world. This creates a vacuum where misinformation and powerful narratives thrive.
For example. Despite reports of almost daily deaths at aid sites, the Israeli-backed group distributing food in Gaza calls the killing of hungry people “fake news”. Israel claims without offering evidence that Hamas was stealing UN aid, and insists there is no starvation in Gaza even as evidence of famine mounts.
Witnesses. In addition to local journalists, international media have come to rely on the testimony of foreign doctors. Nick Maynard, a surgeon from Oxford, who recently returned from the enclave, says he saw “the weaponisation of starvation against an entire population”.
Allegations. Israel justified its killing of al-Sharif by claiming he “posed as a journalist” and was the head of a Hamas cell that directed rocket attacks. Al Jazeera denied this, calling his assassination a “desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza”.
Dodgy dossier. Israel published several documents as evidence for its claim. Among them are screenshots of spreadsheets, not full documents, and they cover a period that ends well before the war. The BBC believes al-Sharif was once part of a Hamas media team, but this was also before the conflict started.
Sceptical. Press freedom groups say it is implausible that al-Sharif, a well-known figure, had time to combine his round-the-clock coverage with running a Hamas unit and that nobody would notice.
Campaign. They also point out that Israeli “smears” against al-Sharif appeared online whenever he reported on major events. In July the Israeli military’s main spokesperson accused al-Sharif of feigning tears when he broke down while reporting on Gaza’s hunger crisis.
Verdict. Jodie Ginsberg, who heads the Committee to Protect Journalists, has “no doubt” that the killings of al-Sharif and his colleagues were “part of a deliberate strategy on the part of Israel to conceal what is happening inside Gaza”, citing Israel’s ban on foreign journalists.
Push back. Israel says letting foreign journalists into a warzone is unsafe and would hurt efforts to recover hostages in Gaza. But it has also restricted a BBC crew from filming Gaza’s destruction from above while they flew in a Jordanian plane dropping aid into the enclave.
Domestically, it has denied government advertising to Haaretz, the only major Israeli newspaper that has consistently reported on the destruction in Gaza.
Rogue. Attacks on journalists violate international law. Although Israel has tried to justify its assassination of al-Sharif, it has offered no reason for killing other media workers in the strike.
Pattern. The other journalists Israel has killed include
Reuters cameraman Issam Abdallah, who Human Rights Watch concluded was “apparently deliberately” targeted by an Israeli tank in Lebanon in October 2023;
Al Jazeera journalist Hamza Dahdouh, whose car was struck by an Israeli missile in Gaza in January 2024; and
Ismail al-Ghoul, another Al Jazeera reporter, who was killed by a drone strike in July 2024 and who Israel also claimed was a Hamas fighter.
What’s more… The Watson Centre at Brown University estimates that more journalists have been killed in the Gaza war than in the American Civil War, the First and Second World Wars, and the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Ukraine.