Al Jazeera's reporter Anas al-Sharif was 28 years old, married, and had two children. He grew up in Jabalia, a UN-established refugee camp for Palestinians displaced in connection with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. On Sunday, he was killed along with several journalist colleagues in an Israeli drone attack on a press tent in Gaza City.
According to Israel, he was a terrorist, a member of Hamas' armed branch, paid by the Islamist movement and responsible for rocket attacks on Israel. The evidence released by Israel is screenshots of spreadsheets that allegedly list Hamas members, including Anas al-Sharif.
In social media, a laudatory Telegram post is also circulating, which is said to have been written by al-Sharif during the October 7 attack, as well as several photos of al-Sharif together with the later killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Whether the post is authentic, neither TT nor any other independent party has been able to verify, nor when or in what context the pictures with Sinwar were taken.
Calls it murder
According to investigations by BBC and CNN, al-Sharif worked before the outbreak of war for the terror-stamped Hamas media team. In December 2023, he was recruited by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera. In a Gaza where Israel forbids international journalists to operate freely, his reports soon gained wide spread. As a journalist, he was protected under international law.
Al Jazeera has sharply dismissed that al-Sharif would belong to Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2006. The independent Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has also rejected the allegations and calls the attack "murder".
Israel has long - even before the war - accused journalists of being terrorists without presenting adequate evidence, according to CPJ.
"Deterrent"
In an interview with Sky News, a spokesperson for the Israeli army claims that more evidence exists, but that it is classified. On a question about the other five journalists who were killed in the attack on Sunday - Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammad al-Khaldi - he replies that the army is "looking into" the matter.
Since the outbreak of war in Gaza in October 2023, Israel has killed nearly 200 journalists and media workers.
I think this is intentionally meant to have a deterrent effect to show that Israel can do what they want, and no one will take any action, says CPJ chief Jodie Ginsberg to The Guardian.
