GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Journalists cried out in disbelief Sunday night as they stepped into a press tent in Gaza City that had been hit in an Israeli airstrike targeting the territory's most prominent and well-recognized journalist, Anas al-Sharif.
In all, six Palestinian journalists were killed in that attack, five of them reporting for Al Jazeera: Anas al-Sharif, Mohammed Qraiqea, Ibrahim al-Thaher, Mohamed Nofal and freelance reporter Mohammed al-Khaldi.
The attack on the journalists, and al-Sharif in particular, was roundly condemned by groups representing journalists, even as Israel's Arabic military spokesman shared what he said was proof that the correspondent was a Hamas cell commander — an allegation first levied last year.
The Committee to Protect Journalists called Israel's allegations against al-Sharif, which he rebutted before his killing, "unsubstantiated." After the attack, the group said Israel was "murdering the messengers."
A video recorded on a journalist's phone shows the immediate aftermath of the attack, with 28-year-old al-Sharif's lifeless and bloodied body lying on the ground next to the maimed bodies of his colleagues. He'd been wearing a blue press vest that journalists don in war zones.
Al-Sharif always wore the vest. He was a target, one of six Al Jazeera journalists named in a list 10 months ago by Israel, which accused them of having ties with militant groups.
Some in that list were later assassinated — like journalist Hossam Shabbat — or severely wounded.
But al-Sharif, a father of two young children, never wavered and never left the north of the territory despite displacement orders, heavy airstrikes and ground offensives.
His boyish face and neatly combed hair belied the raw force of his live broadcasts in besieged areas of northern Gaza, under bombardment by Israeli fighter jets, or among the rain-flooded tents of displaced families, and in damaged hospitals and school shelters.
That reporting gained him huge admiration in Gaza and a combined social media following of at least 2 million people, globally, on Instagram and X.
Al Jazeera questioned the timing of the attack on al-Sharif and his colleagues, which comes just as Israel plans a sweeping invasion of Gaza City in an effort to take control and occupy it.
"The order to assassinate Anas al-Sharif, one of Gaza's bravest journalists, and his colleagues, is a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza," the Al Jazeera Media Network said in a statement.
Israel's military confirmed the airstrike that killed al-Sharif, saying he was operating under the false cover of a journalist. The military published digital graphics of documents it says show al-Sharif was a "terrorist within the ranks of Hamas."
The military declined to answer NPR's questions on why al-Sharif was killed now — 10 months after Israel first levied accusations against him. It also did not answer a request for what proof the military has beyond the lists it published online.
"This is part of a pattern that we've seen from Israel in which Israel alleges that journalists are terrorists and then fails to produce any real credible evidence," CPJ's chief executive, Jodie Ginsberg, told NPR after Israel first made allegations against al-Sharif and other Al Jazeera journalists last October:
She says smearing local journalists is a feature of what authoritarian regimes do to cast doubt on the reporting.
In his last broadcast — aired hours before he was killed — al-Sharif showed images of Gaza's famished children suffering from Israeli restrictions on aid. Israel's government denies there's starvation in Gaza.
These scenes brought the father of two to tears on camera recently, but Israel's Arabic military spokesman released his own video after, accusing him of pretending to be pained and promoting Hamas propaganda.
The CPJ has recorded nearly 190 lethal attacks on journalists in Gaza throughout the 22-month-long war. The CPJ, Reporters Without Borders and others report that more journalists in Gaza have been killed in Israeli attacks in a single year of war than in any conflict on record, anywhere.
Al-Sharif experienced the loss of his own father early in the war in an airstrike on the family's home.
But he came to anticipate death. In a prewritten statement published after his killing, he says that through pain and suffering, he never once hesitated to convey the truth.
Aya Batrawy reported from Atlanta.
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