Israeli strike kills Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif as toll on
journalists in Gaza worsens
[August 11, 2025]
By SAM METZ and SAMY MAGDY
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military targeted an Al Jazeera correspondent
with an airstrike Sunday, killing him, another network journalist and at
least six other people, all of whom were sheltering outside the Gaza
City Hospital complex.
Officials at Shifa Hospital said those killed included Al Jazeera
correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohamed Qureiqa. The strike also
killed four other journalists and two other people, hospital
administrative director Rami Mohanna told The Associated Press. The
strike also damaged the entrance to the hospital complex’s emergency
building.
Both Israel and hospital officials in Gaza City confirmed the deaths,
which press advocates described as retribution against those documenting
the war in Gaza. Israel's military later Sunday described al-Sharif as
the leader of a Hamas cell — an allegation that Al Jazeera and al-Sharif
had previously dismissed as baseless.
The incident marked the first time during the war that Israel's military
has swiftly claimed responsibility after a journalist was killed in a
strike.
It came less than a year after Israeli army officials first accused
al-Sharif and other Al Jazeera journalists of being members of the
militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In a July 24 video, Israel’s
army spokesperson Avichay Adraee attacked Al Jazeera and accused
al-Sharif of being part of Hamas’ military wing.
Al Jazeera calls strike ‘assassination’
Al Jazeera called the strike “targeted assassination” and accused
Israeli officials of incitement, connecting al-Sharif's death to the
allegations that both the network and correspondent had denied.
“Anas and his colleagues were among the last remaining voices from
within Gaza, providing the world with unfiltered, on-the-ground coverage
of the devastating realities endured by its people,” the Qatari network
said in a statement.
Apart from rare invitations to observe Israeli military operations,
international media have been barred from entering Gaza for the duration
of the war. Al Jazeera is among the few outlets still fielding a big
team of reporters inside the besieged strip, chronicling daily life amid
airstrikes, hunger and the rubble of destroyed neighborhoods.
The network has suffered heavy losses during the war, including
27-year-old correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi,
killed last summer, and freelancer Hossam Shabat, killed in an Israeli
airstrike in March.
Like al-Sharif, Shabat was among the six that Israel accused of being
members of militant groups last October.
Funeral-goers call to protect journalists
Hundreds of people, including many journalists, gathered Monday to mourn
al-Sharif, Qureiqa and their colleagues. The bodies lay wrapped in white
sheets at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital complex. Ahed Ferwana of the
Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said reporters were being deliberately
targeted and urged the international community to act.
Al-Sharif reported a nearby bombardment minutes before his death. In a
social media post that Al Jazeera said was written to be posted in case
of his death, he bemoaned the devastation and destruction that war had
wrought and bid farewell to his wife, son and daughter.
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Palestinians inspect the destroyed tent where journalists, including
Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohamed Qureiqa, were
killed by an Israeli airstrike outside the Gaza City's Shifa
hospital complex Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
“I never hesitated for a single day to convey the truth as it is,
without distortion or falsification,” the 28-year-old wrote.
The journalists are the latest to be killed in what observers have
called the deadliest conflict for journalists in modern times. The
Committee to Protect Journalists said on Sunday that at least 186
have been killed in Gaza, and Brown University’s Watson Institute in
April said the war was “quite simply, the worst ever conflict for
reporters.”
Al-Sharif began reporting for Al Jazeera a few days after war broke
out. He was known for reporting on Israel’s bombardment in northern
Gaza, and later for the starvation gripping much of the territory’s
population. Qureiqa, a 33-year-old Gaza City native, is survived by
two children.
Both journalists were separated from their families for months
earlier in the war. When they managed to reunite during the
ceasefire earlier this year, their children appeared unable to
recognize them, according to video footage they posted at the time.
In a July broadcast al-Sharif cried on air as woman behind him
collapsed from hunger.
“I am taking about slow death of those people,” he said at the time.
Al Jazeera is blocked in Israel and soldiers raided its offices in
the occupied West Bank last year, ordering them closed.
Al-Sharif’s death comes weeks after a U.N. expert and the New
York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Israel had targeted
him with a smear campaign.
Irene Khan, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, on
July 31 said that the killings were “part of a deliberate strategy
of Israel to suppress the truth, obstruct the documentation of
international crimes and bury any possibility of future
accountability.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists said on Sunday that it was
appalled by the strike.
“Israel’s pattern of labeling journalists as militants without
providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its
intent and respect for press freedom,” Sara Qudah, the group's
regional director, said in a statement.
___
Magdy reported from Cairo.
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