Israeli
military said it targeted and killed Anas Al Sharif, alleging he had headed a
Hamas militant cell and was involved in rocket attacks on Israel.
Al Jazeera, which is funded by the Qatari government,
rejected the assertion, and before his death, Al Sharif had also rejected such
claims by Israel.
"Anas Al Sharif and his colleagues were among the last
remaining voices in Gaza conveying the tragic reality to the world," Al
Jazeera said.
Al Sharif, 28, was among a group of four Al Jazeera
journalists and an assistant who died in an airstrike on a tent near Al Shifa
Hospital in eastern Gaza City, Gaza officials and Al Jazeera said. An official
at the hospital said two other people were killed in the strike.
A sixth journalist, Mohammad Al-Khaldi, a local freelance
reporter, was also killed in the strike, medics at Al Shifa Hospital said on
Monday.
Calling
Al Sharif "one of Gaza's bravest journalists," Al Jazeera said the
attack was a "desperate attempt to silence voices in anticipation of
the occupation of Gaza."
The other journalists killed were Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim
Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, Al Jazeera said.
"The deliberate targeting of journalists by Israel in
the Gaza Strip reveals how these crimes are beyond imagination," Qatari
Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, said on X.
The UN human rights office condemned the killing of the
journalists, saying the actions by Israel's military represented a "grave
breach of international humanitarian law" as Palestinians reported the
heaviest bombardments in weeks.
Its post on social media platform X was accompanied by a
photograph of flattened blue tents next to a bullet-ridden wall in Gaza City.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is "gravely
concerned" about the repeated targeting of journalists in Gaza, his
spokesperson said.
Israel denies deliberately targeting journalists. It says
many of those killed in Israeli airstrikes were members of Islamist militant
groups, working under the guise of the press.
