The 10 August killing of six journalists, including four Al Jazeera staff, in one of the deadliest attacks by Israeli forces near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City has triggered global outrage. The dead include 28-year-old correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who had been covering the war since its outset.
In fact, August has been one of the deadliest for media persons in recent times, with a journalist hacked to death in neighboring Bangladesh for filming an assault. Tuhin, a staff reporter with the Bangla-language daily Protidiner Kagoj in Gazipur, a suburb of Dhaka, was chased and killed by a group of armed assailants on 7 August, CPJ reported.
In Gaza, the previous deadliest single attack was recorded on 26 December 2024, when five journalists and media workers were killed in an Israeli strike on a news van. 13 journalists have been killed by Israel so far in 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says, adding more than 190 journalists and media workers have been killed in the Israel-Gaza war since it began in 2023.
The six journalists were correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal and two freelancers, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammad al-Khaldi.
In a statement announcing the killing of al-Sharif, Israel’s military accused him of heading a Hamas cell and of “advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and [Israeli] troops.”
“Israel is murdering the messengers,” said CPJ regional director Sara Qudah. “Israel wiped out an entire news crew. It has made no claims that any of the other journalists were terrorists. That’s murder. Plain and simple.”
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has joined the call by more than 180 international organizations to suspend the trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and Israel. RSF claims more than 200 journalists have been killed by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip since October 2023, including at least 46 who were targeted because of their journalistic activities.
“The EU’s verbal condemnations have gone on long enough in the face of the unprecedented number of journalists killed and the war crimes perpetrated by the Israeli army against journalists in the Gaza Strip. The Netanyahu government, which continues to flout its international human rights commitments, must be sanctioned. As Israel’s largest trading partner, it is time for the EU to suspend its bilateral trade agreement,”Antoine Bernard, RSF’s director of Advocacy and Assistance, says.
A report in the Israeli-Palestinian +972 Magazine claims a special unit in Israel’s military was tasked with identifying reporters it could smear as undercover Hamas fighters, to target them and to blunt international outrage over the killing of media workers.
UNESCO’s director-general, Audrey Azoulay, in a statement, condemned the recent Gaza killings and called for a thorough and transparent investigation.
