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Yesterday, Sunday, while gathering and reporting news near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the main city of Gaza, Al Jazeera's two reporters Anas Al Sharif and Mohammad Kuraiqe, along with three camerapersons Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammad Nufal, and Moamen Aliwa, were killed in an Israeli Air Force shelling.
Citing Dr. Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, the news agency AFP reported that in addition to Al Jazeera's five media workers, another journalist named Mohammad Al Khalidi was also killed on Sunday. He was a freelance reporter. Today, Monday, Mohammad Al Khalidi was buried along with Al Jazeera's five media workers.
After noon on Monday, the funeral prayer for the six journalists was held in the Al-Shifa compound. For the funeral, more than a hundred people gathered in the Al-Shifa courtyard and the surrounding buildings destroyed by bomb blasts. After the funeral prayer, the grieving mourners carried the journalists' bodies, wrapped in white shrouds, through narrow alleys to the graves. During this final journey, many individuals were seen wearing the journalists' blue bulletproof jackets.
The killing of Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza has sparked a storm of condemnation against Israel worldwide. The Foreign Press Association (FPA), a global organization working for the protection of journalists, strongly condemned the attack, stating, "Attacking or targeting those who are risking their lives to report from Gaza is deeply reprehensible. This is a direct assault on journalism."
The hospital authorities had set up a tent outside the main gate of the hospital for the journalists. On Sunday, the Israeli Air Force dropped a bomb targeting that tent. This resulted in the deaths of Anas Al Sharif and the other five media workers.
Meanwhile, a few hours after the attack, in a statement, the IDF claimed that 28-year-old Anas Al Sharif had been a 'target' of the Israeli forces beforehand due to his alleged involvement with Hamas.
"The slain Al Jazeera reporter Anas Al Sharif was not only directly involved with Hamas's military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, which controls the Gaza Strip, but he was also the head of the rocket launching division and a member of the elite Nukhba Force Company's East Jabalia Unit," the IDF statement said.
The IDF also claimed in the statement that Sharif had recently received $200 from Hamas for a certain need.
Local journalists in Gaza who knew him have acknowledged Sharif's involvement with Hamas. They said that Sharif began his political career through a job in Hamas's media department. His main task was to publish various activities of the group in the form of news on behalf of Hamas.
However, they also acknowledged that among the journalists in Gaza who gained the most recognition internally and internationally after the start of the Israeli military operation, Anas Al Sharif was one of them. They noted that he was a very hardworking journalist.
Jodi Ginsberg, the top executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international organization working for the protection of journalists, told AFP, "International law clearly states that only combatants are legitimate targets in the battlefield. Until Israel can prove that Anas Al Sharif was a Hamas fighter, this killing is not justified."
