Israel targeted a press tent in Gaza on Sunday and massacred five more Al Jazeera journalists. This adds to Israel’s historic slaughter of journalists, many of whom are now facing starvation.
Heroes of Palestine graffiti, Leake Street, London, February 2024. (duncan cumming/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0)
The Israeli military on Sunday killed five Al Jazeera journalists with an airstrike on a press tent in Gaza City, a massacre that the media network decried as “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom.”
Reporters Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa were killed in the Israeli strike. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that it was intentionally targeting al-Sharif, claiming he was “the head of a Hamas terrorist cell.”
Press freedom organizations, United Nations experts and human rights groups have denounced such assertions as part of a smear campaign aimed at justifying al-Sharif’s assassination.
The names of the five Al Jazeera journalists assassinated by Israel in a strike on their tent in Gaza on Sunday night:
• Anas Al Sharif
• Mohammed Qreiqea
• Ibrahim Zaher
• Mohammed Noufal
• Moamen Aliwa pic.twitter.com/fnTbZZXUa8— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) August 10, 2025
Last month, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it was “gravely worried” about al-Sharif’s safety, noting that the IDF ramped up its false attacks after “the journalist cried on air while reporting on starvation in Gaza.”
CPJ regional director Sara Qudah said in a statement Sunday that “Israel’s pattern of labeling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom.”
“Journalists are civilians and must never be targeted,” said Qudah. “Those responsible for these killings must be held accountable.”
The Al Jazeera Media Network said the five journalists killed by the Israeli military on Sunday “boldly and courageously documented the plight of Gaza and its people since the onset of the war.” They are among at least 10 Al Jazeera staff members who have been killed by Israeli forces since October 2023.
“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 network continued. “Through continuous, courageous live coverage, they have delivered searing eyewitness accounts of the horrors unleashed over 22 months of relentless bombing and destruction.”
AJ reporter Mohamed Qreiqe grew up an orphan & only son. In 2024, Israeli forces executed his mom who sought shelter & medicine in Gaza City’s AlShifa hospital during the 2nd assault on the compound. Mohamed was killed a few steps away from the crime scene of his mom’s murder. pic.twitter.com/Bqtqf40S9e
— Nour Odeh ??? #FreePalestine (@nour_odeh) August 11, 2025
The Israeli government has barred the foreign press from entering the Gaza Strip, leaving Palestinian journalists with the immense burden of covering the assault while also struggling for their own survival.
CPJ estimates that more than 180 journalists have been killed since Israel’s assault on Gaza began following the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate puts the figure higher, at 230.
[The Brown University-based Costs of War Project in April called Gaza the worst ever conflict for reporters in history and estimated that Israel had by then killed “at least 232 journalists” in Gaza and said in its report that the death toll
“tops the combined toll of journalist casualties in the U.S. Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the U.S.’s assaults on Cambodia and Laos), the Yugoslav Wars, the War in Afghanistan, and the ongoing Ukraine War.”]
Palestinian journalists are also among those facing the growing threat of starvation under Israel’s suffocating blockade.
[See: Starving Journalists in Gaza Sell Cameras for Food]
Mohamed Duar, Amnesty International Australia’s occupied Palestinian territory spokesperson, said Sunday that “Israel isn’t just assassinating journalists but attacking journalism itself by preventing the documentation of genocide.”
This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. First, peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings.
Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my…
— ??? ?????? Anas Al-Sharif (@AnasAlSharif0) August 10, 2025
“The courageous and brave journalists who have been reporting since the genocide began have been operating in the most dangerous conditions on Earth,” said Duar. “At great risk to their lives, they have remained to show the world the war crimes being committed by Israel against almost two million Palestinian women, men, and children.”
Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Israel’s crimes and lies know no bounds.No moral,legal or geographical boundaries either.
Israel’s crimes and lies know no bounds.No moral,legal or geographical boundaries either.
The Jewish supremacists are set to launch a second attack on Iran in late August. It’s expected to be larger in scale and of greater intensity than the first attack.
Please help us all.
Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that the Zionists eliminated these journalists so that the impending Jewish supremacist inflicted massacres in Gaza City take place in a world of darkness. Everyone will be none the wiser.
Imagine the horrors in store.
The perfect example of God-like complex embedded in the psyche of a nation that should know better, and I’m referring here to Israel.