Tragedy in Gaza: Veteran Al Jazeera Reporter Anas al-Sharif and Four Colleagues Fall to Israeli Strike

Sunday Airstrike Silences Five Gaza-Based TV Correspondents

Jerusalem & Gaza City – August 11, 2025

An Israeli aerial raid that struck the northern outskirts of Gaza City on Sunday afternoon ended the lives of five Al Jazeera staffers, most prominently 28-year-old reporter Anas al-Sharif. Within minutes of the blast, an army spokesperson acknowledged ordering the attack, describing al-Sharif as “a commanding figure in a Hamas unit”—a charge the network and the reporter himself had repeatedly rejected as misinformation.

—

Key Events in Brief

09:42 local time: Drone-launched missile strikes pick-up truck outside Shifa Hospital complex.

09:49 local time: IDF publishes post on X/Twitter assuming responsibility.

16:30 local time: Three more colleagues driving to the scene are hit in a follow-up strike.

21:15 local time: Bodies, wrapped in white linen, moved from morgue to nearby mosque for communal prayer.

—

Israel’s Justification

Undated photographs were released showing al-Sharif in the same frame as Yahya Sinwar, the slain Hamas political leader.

An army spokesman, Lt-Col Avichay Adraee, captioned the images, “Not journalists but combatants.”

No timestamp, location, or forensic metadata accompanied the pictures.

—

Al Jazeera’s Counter-Narrative

Network statement: “Anas lived with his microphone, not a rifle.”

Colleagues recalled how he wept on air in July while filming a grandmother collapsing from malnutrition—a segment later carried by global outlets.

Committee to Protect Journalists confirmed receiving a personal plea from al-Sharif three weeks ago, warning he was being “pre-marked for elimination.”

—

Escalating Pattern

Since the war began in October 2023:

178 Palestinian reporters and media workers have died, according to CPJ’s latest audit.

Only a handful of invited foreign reporters have entered under IDF escort, leaving Gazan nationals to shoulder nearly all frontline coverage.

Al Jazeera alone has lost four employees in the past eleven months, among them Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi, killed during the leveling of a beachfront district last summer.

—

Global Reactions

Foreign Press Association, founded in 1893, denounced the strike for “criminalizing journalism.”

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders urged the International Criminal Court to open a war-crimes dossier.

Monday mourning: several hundred residents formed a human chain at Shifa’s entrance, chanting, “Our cameras are louder than your bombs.”

—

Final Images

Footage recorded moments before the attack shows al-Sharif raising his press vest toward the sky, shouting over the buzz of a drone, “We are reporters!” Screens across Gaza City replay the clip in silence.

A Last Witness Silenced in Gaza: 28-Year-Old Al-Jazeera Correspondent Isam al-Sharif

Valediction from the Frontline

At 09:12 local time on Aug. 1, 2024, Anas al-Sharif—better known to viewers as Isam al-Sharif—uploaded a single-sentence clip to Instagram:
“Blast is close; if this cuts off, know I loved my work.”

That fragment became his digital epitaph. Minutes later the neighborhood around the university compound shook as the next Israeli strike pulverised an adjacent residential block. The Al-Jazeera Arabic reporter was fatally injured while still broadcasting on his earpiece.

Age when killed: 28
Years with Al-Jazeera Media Network: 5
Three children orphaned: wife Huda, son Adam, daughter Layan

In a pre-scheduled social-media farewell that his colleagues released after his death, al-Sharif wrote:

“I carried my microphone as though it were a shield, refusing to distort the sky above Gaza. If tonight the sky itself falls, forgive me. I only ever tried to show it to the world untouched.”

Emerging Pattern: “Kill the Story by Killing the Storyteller”

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate held an emergency press briefing barely two hours after the attack.

Ahed Ferwana, head of the PJS legal unit, told reporters:
“This is not crossfire or collateral damage. Al-Sharif’s news crew had sent GPS coordinates to the Israeli military liaison 45 minutes before the strike. We are facing a deliberate campaign to eradicate Gaza’s eyes and ears.”

Quick facts

At least 186 media workers confirmed dead in Gaza since 7 October 2023.
1 in every 60 journalists operating in Gaza has been killed—an unprecedented ratio.
Fifty-six cases documented by the PJS include reporters wearing press-marked vests hit by direct fire.

International Reactions: Words and Recriminations

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a same-day statement:
“Israel’s pattern of classifying journalists as ‘terrorist elements’ while offering no evidence is an affront to Article 79 of the Geneva Conventions.”

Irene Khan, U.N. Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, echoed:
“The systematic nature of these killings points to a strategy aimed at erasing accountability trails before they can be laid.”

From Broadcasting to Black-out

Al-Jazeera remains formally banned inside Israel, and last winter soldiers shuttered the network’s Ramallah bureau with a 45-day shutdown order. Nonetheless, reporters in Gaza—many relying on Israeli SIM cards rented on the Egyptian side of Rafah—continue to upload satellite bandwidth through Turkish providers.

Inside the Al-Shifa media tent where Gaza’s press corps now convene nightly, reporters light a second candle next to al-Sharif’s photo.
Their chant is simple:
“When you block one lens, a thousand shutters open.”