Four Al Jazeera journalists, including its senior correspondent Anas Al Sharif, and an assistant were killed in an Israeli strike on a tent near Shifa Hospital in eastern Gaza City on Sunday.
Israel’s military claimed that Al Sharif, 28, was a Hamas cell leader posing as a journalist even though right advocates have confronted this claim.
“Al Sharif was the head of a Hamas cell and was responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF (Israeli) troops,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
The other slain journalists were identified as Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufa, reported Reuters.
Al Jazeera has denounced the killings and termed it a “desperate attempt” to silence voices in anticipation of the occupation of Gaza.
Calling Al Sharif a “brave journalist”, the channel released a social media message to be posted in the event of his death that read: "...I never hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or misrepresentation, hoping that God would witness those who remained silent."
Al Jazeera further lamented that Al Sharif and his colleagues were among the last remaining voices in Gaza conveying the tragic reality to the world.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a press freedom group, had earlier warned that Al Sharif's life was in danger due to his front-line reporting on Gaza war. On Sunday, the panel said Israel had failed to provide any evidence to back up its allegations against the journalist.
According to the CPJ, at least 186 journalists have been killed in the Gaza conflict while the media office of the Gaza government claimed the toll is 237.
