By Dr Marwan Asmar
In another heinous move Israel has killed six journalists outside the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Sunday. A direct Israeli strike on a “journalist tent” was deliberately made to kill as many media reporters as possible. It was made as a prelude to a full-scale Israeli military invasion of Gaza City that is said to be coming soon.
As openly admitted by the Israeli military, the attack reached their targets killing prominent Al Jazeera journalists Anas Al Sharif and Mohammad Qreiqah and four other reporters.
These also included photojournalists Ibrahim Thaher, Mohammad Nofal and Moamen Eliwa. Later reports showed journalist Mohammad Al Khalidi was also killed.
The latest attacks are described by the press as “a journalists massacre” designed to shut-down the voices of media workers who had been reporting on Israel’s latest starvation policy of the Palestinian population of Gaza now at the end of the Israeli tank, gun, plane, drone for the last 22 months.
The killing was of the journalists was clearly aimed at Al Jazeera who had been covering Israel’s Gaza genocide since it started on 7 October, 2023 till today, covering Israeli destruction of the enclave and the killing and injury of its people.
The killing of the journalists came hours after a press conference held by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to defend Israel’s latest moves to occupy Gaza city and finally get rid of Hamas which is today far from being realized.
Although, today Israel occupies at least 80 percent of the Gaza Strip, it has come at a great cost for the Israeli army who have lost a great deal of soldiers and machinery, and after 22 months are nowhere near to getting rid of Hamas nor its armed wing the Izz Al Din Al Qassam Brigades.
Regardless of what imagination Netanyahu has about the movement and other Palestinian resistance groups, the latest killings of the journalists, which have continued throughout this genocide, is to smother the voice of media workers about the atrocities Israel is carrying out in Gaza.
But this has not happened. According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, the latest killings mean that the number of journalists that have been targeted by Israel climbs up to 237, the highest figure of journalists killed anywhere in the world, now and in history.
What Netanyahu and his extremist government want is to continue to kill as many of these media workers as possible because they are Gaza’s voice to the world in this Israeli ethnic cleansing for no international journalists have been allowed to enter Gaza, except for the select few and under the strict supervision of the Israeli army. International independent journalists have been clamoring to get into Gaza but these have fell on deaf Israeli ears.
Palestine Chronicle Editor Ramzy Baroud wrote on X: Two more journalists, Anas Al-Sharif and Mohammad Qreiqah have been killed in Gaza. These brilliant young reporters were known for their courage and powerful commitment to the truth.
He added: This is a deliberate war on journalism. The silence and complicity of some corporate media outlets only serve to amplify Israeli propaganda.
But they will fail. The death of Anas, Mohammad and over 230 other journalists will not bury the Palestinian story. Indeed, their sacrifice ensures that their voices – and their truth – will be heard more loudly than before.
The intellectual and moral strength of the Palestinian narrative will not be weakened. Even the mass murder of its fine journalists can’t muffle its voice. Justice will prevail, he ends by saying.
The Al Jazeera news outlet stated the deliberate killing of its journalists by Israel in Gaza is but “a desperate attempt to silence voices ahead of the invasion of Gaza.”
In a strongly-worded statement Al Jazeera added “the responsibility for this attack lies entirely with the Israeli army and government.”
The statement of the satellite channel underlined that numerous Israeli officials repeatedly incited and called for the targeting of Al-Sharif and his colleagues.
“Anas Al-Sharif was one of the bravest journalists documenting the starvation imposed by the occupying Israeli forces on the people of Gaza. Silencing voices as part of the Gaza invasion plan is a desperate attempt,” Al Jazeera added while calling the act “deliberate” and “despicable”.
The Doha-based channel stated this is an overt and planned attack on media freedom to muzzle the truth and prevent this tragedy from reaching the world. “Telling the truth has become a threat in Israel’s eyes,” it said.
It rejected the claim put out by the Israeli army that Al Sharif was a “Hamas cell leader” and involved in planning rocket attacks on Israel.
The Al Jazeera statement underscored that Al-Sharif had previously stated he had no political affiliations and was simply a journalist committed to reporting the truth objectively.
Condemning Israel’s threats and targeting of journalists, the statement said: “Telling the truth has become a threat in the eyes of Israel, especially in Gaza, where people are fighting hunger.”
It warned that Israel’s crimes going unpunished only encourage more massacres by the occupying force and stressed that the international community must act to prevent that according to Anadolu.
It would be an understatement to say journalists have been the underdog in this Israeli genocide for around 500 of them have been injured during their duty. However, despite the tanks, the drones and the bullets their voices will surely continue to be heard in Palestine.
Dr Marwan Asmar is a writer from Amman.
11 August 2025
Source: countercurrents.org