Media in the crosshairs: Al-Jasira’s top reporter killed in Gaza

Israel’s military killed the correspondent of the station and four other employees in an air raid in the Gaza Strip, according to the Arab TV station al-Jasira. Anas Al-Sharif and his colleagues died in a targeted attack on a tent for journalists in the city of Gaza in the north of the Gaza Strip.

Large crowds lined the last path of the five killed to the sheikh Radwan cemetery in the city of Gaza the day after, al-Jasira reported on verified clips on social media. Friends, colleagues and relatives hugged and comforted each other. A man raised a protective vest with the inscription “Press” while others wiped their tears away.

Journalists are always in the crosshairs of Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip. According to the committee for the protection of journalists (CPJ), 186 media employees have been killed in such attacks since the beginning of the Gaza War. The Arabic broadcaster Al-Jasira alone complained about five correspondents, cameramen and technicians before the last attack.

Israel’s military confirmed the death of Al-Sharif. The 28-year-old had pretended to be Al-Jasira journalist, but led a terrorist cell of the Islamist Hamas, the military claimed. Documents found on information from the secret services and in the Gaza Strip referred to the military belonging to al-Sharif to Hamas. Al-Sharif was responsible for the implementation of rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers. The military did not comment on the other four victims of the attack.

Little transparency in accusations

The Israeli information cannot be checked. The alleged intelligence information is not accessible to the public, their context is not transparent. Even in previous cases, the army justified the killing of Palestinian journalists with their alleged belonging to Hamas. “Israel has a long-lasting, documented practice of accusing journalists as terrorists without providing credible evidence,” wrote the CPJ journalist protection committee in a statement in which it sharply condemned the killing of the five al-Dschaira employees.

Al-Sharif had apparently been released by Israel for a long time. Avichai Adraee, the Israeli military spokesman for communication in Arabic, had posted several videos on social platforms in July, in which he insulted the television reporter as a “mouthpiece for intellectual terrorism”. “I live with the feeling that I can be bombarded at any time and made a martyr at any time,” trusted the CPJ at the time. This demanded that the international community had to protect him.

DJV: “Hunt for media professionals cannot be acceptable”

The German Association of Journalists (DJV) condemned the Israeli attack. Even if Al-Sharif was a terrorist, this does not justify the air raid on a journalist tent, said DJV Federal Chairman Mika Beuster. He added that on the basis of non -verifiable allegations would be hunt for media professionals, he added.

The foreign press association in Israel (FPA) was outraged by the killing of al-Sharifs and its colleagues. “In the past 22 months, the Israeli military has repeatedly stamped Palestinian journalists as a militant, often without verifiable evidence, and thus made them attack goals,” the association wrote in a statement.

The FPA also criticized that foreign journalists have largely banned access to the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war. The reporting is therefore solely in the hands of local reporters who risk their lives. Israel in turn accuses of reporting from the Gaza Strip one -sidedness and manipulation by Hamas.

Al-Jasira’s face in the Gaza Strip

Al-Sharif was one of the most famous reporters of the Arabic-speaking station in the Gaza Strip. Since the outbreak of the Gaza War on October 7, 2023, he reported on the events on site. Especially in the Arab world, the 28-year-old was considered a prominent face of reporting from Gaza.

The broadcaster based in Qatar condemned the attack as another “intentionally planned attack on freedom of the press.” Al-Sharif and his colleagues were one of the last public votes from Gaza.

Al-Jasira is one of the leading news channels in the Arab world and reaches an audience of millions there. Israel repeatedly blocks the work of journalists from the station and has already closed their office in West Bank. Among other things, Israel accuses Al-Jasira of being “mouthpiece” of Hamas and the proiran Hisbollah. An accusation that the transmitter rejects. Instead, reporters without limits accuse Israel of pursuing a “strategy of the media blackout”.