Press freedom groups slam Israeli killing of Al Jazeera staff in Gaza

International press freedom groups expressed outrage on Monday at the killing of five media workers in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, one of the network's most prominent journalists covering the 22-month war, and four of his colleagues were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Sunday that hit a tent housing journalists in Gaza City.

Israel's military confirmed al-Sharif's death, saying he was targeted because he was not a journalist but a leader of a Hamas "terrorist cell" in Gaza.

The broadcaster said the military had not provided any documents verified by independent international sources to support the claim.

Seven people in total were killed in the attack, the network said: al-Sharif, fellow Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, the camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, and two other individuals.

Large crowds lined the funeral procession for the five dead to the Sheikh Radwan cemetery in the city of Gaza on Monday, Al-Jazeera reported, citing verified clips on social media.

Friends, colleagues and relatives hugged and comforted each other. One man held up a protective waistcoat labelled "Press," while others wiped away their tears.


Israel's military claimed that al-Sharif had been allegedly been responsible for carrying out rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers. The military did not comment on the other four victims of the attack.

The UN's human rights office in Geneva condemned the attack, calling it a "grave breach of international humanitarian law. Israel must respect and protect all civilians, including journalists."

In Berlin, the German Foreign Office demanded a "transparent" explanation as to why Israel thought it necessary to bomb a tent housing journalists.

The German Journalists' Association (DJV) said that even if it can be proven that al-Sharif worked for Hamas, this did not justify the airstrike on the tent being used by multiple media workers, said DJV Federal Chairman Mika Beuster.

He added that it was unacceptable to deliberately hunt down journalists on the basis of unverifiable allegations.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) questioned Israel's claim that al-Sharif was a Hamas cadre.

"Israel has a longstanding, documented pattern of accusing journalists of being terrorists without providing any credible proof," the organization said in a statement released at its headquarters in New York.

The CPJ says at least 192 journalists and media workers have been killed since the start of the Gaza conflict.

Israel's Foreign Press Association said: "Over the past 22 months, the Israeli military has repeatedly labelled Palestinian journalists as militants, often without verifiable evidence, turning them into targets."

"We call on Israel to cease its attacks on journalists in Gaza and allow journalists to enter and report freely," the organization said in a statement.

Israel has repeatedly accused journalists in the Gaza Strip of working for Hamas, a stance critics see as an attempt to suppress critical reporting from the war zone.

Foreign reporters have been largely barred from entering Gaza since the conflict began, leaving local journalists to cover events on the ground.

The Al Jazeera Media Network condemned the killings as "yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom."

"This attack comes amid the catastrophic consequences of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has seen the relentless slaughter of civilians, forced starvation, and the obliteration of entire communities," the network said.