Israel’s military said it targeted and killed a Hamas cell leader posing as an Al Jazeera journalist in an airstrike on Gaza City on Sunday, a claim condemned by the Qatari broadcaster.<\/p>\n
Anas\u00a0al-Sharif was among a group of five\u00a0Al Jazeera journalists who died in a strike on a tent near Shifa Hospital in eastern Gaza City, Gaza officials and Al Jazeera said. An official at the hospital said there were seven people killed in the strike.<\/p>\n
“Anas\u00a0al-Sharif served as the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organization and was responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and [Israel Defence Forces]\u00a0troops,” the Israeli military said in a statement, citing intelligence and documents found in Gaza as evidence.<\/p>\n
Palestinian militant group Hamas, which runs Gaza, said the killing may signal the start of an Israeli offensive.<\/p>\n
“The assassination of journalists and the intimidation of those who remain paves the way for a major crime that the occupation is planning to commit in Gaza City,” Hamas said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Palestinian journalists’ groups and Al Jazeera denounced the killings. The other journalists killed were correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal\u00a0and Moamen Aliwa, Al Jazeera said.<\/p>\n
Calling al-Sharif “one of Gaza’s bravest journalists,” Al Jazeera said the attack “is a desperate attempt to silence voices in anticipation of the occupation of Gaza.”<\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he would launch a new offensive to take control of Gaza, where a hunger crisis is escalating after almost two years of war.<\/p>\n
“Anas\u00a0al-Sharif and his colleagues were among the last remaining voices in Gaza conveying the tragic reality to the world,” Al Jazeera said.<\/p>\n
A press freedom group and a United Nations expert previously warned that al-Sharif’s life was in danger due to his reporting from Gaza. UN\u00a0Special Rapporteur Irene Khan said last month Israel’s claims against him were unsubstantiated.<\/p>\n
In July, the Committee to Protect Journalists urged the international community to protect al-Sharif.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel’s military said it targeted and killed a Hamas cell leader posing as an Al Jazeera journalist in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-60243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}