LATE on Sunday, a deliberate Israeli drone attack hit a tent for journalists located outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, killing seven people.
Among the dead were prominent Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, along with camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed Noufal.
Al Jazeera Media Network condemned this ‘targeted assassination’ of its journalists, pointing out that 28-year-old al-Sharif, ‘known for his fearless reporting from northern Gaza, had become one of the most recognisable voices documenting the ongoing Israeli genocide in the enclave.’
Al-Sharif won Amnesty’s ‘Human Rights Defender’ award last December.
Al Jazeera called his and his colleagues’ killings ‘a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza.’
The Palestine mission to the United Nations accused Israel of deliberately assassinating al-Sharif and Qreiqeh, describing them as among the ‘last remaining journalists’ in Gaza who ‘have systematically and dutifully exposed and documented Israel’s genocide and starvation. As Israel continues to ethnically cleanse Gaza, its enemy remains the truth: the brave journalists exposing its heinous crimes.’
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman issued a call to the world to hold Israel to account, saying: ‘A press badge is no shield against genocidal war criminals who fear the world witnessing their atrocities.’
Without bothering to provide any evidence, the Israeli military admitted deliberately targeting the journalists’ tent, claiming that al-Sharif was a member of Hamas’ military wing.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it was ‘appalled’, adding that ‘Israel’s pattern of labelling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom.’
The Israeli regime does not allow foreign journalists to enter Gaza and the world is reliant on the bravery of local reporters to reveal the crimes against humanity being committed daily by Israeli Occupation Forces against Palestinian men, women and children in the enclave.
Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of al-Shifa Hospital, said that the Israeli regime killed the Al Jazeera journalists to prevent coverage of the atrocities it intends to carry out.
He told Turkish news agency Anadolu: ‘The occupation is preparing for a major massacre in Gaza, but this time without sound or image. It wants to kill and displace the largest number of Palestinians in Gaza City but this time in the absence of the voice of Anas, Mohamed, Al-Jazeera and all satellite channels.’
For this they have long been targeted for assassination by a Zionist regime desperate to keep its genocide from the eyes of tens of millions of workers and the masses of the world.
Around 237 journalists have been murdered, often along with their families, since Israel launched its genocidal war in October 2023.
The Zionist Israeli regime is actively planning for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, a plan only possible with the support of US imperialism and the complicity of the UK and EU governments.
While there has been universal condemnation of the assassination of these journalists, Starmer’s Labour government has remained completely silent, instead directing its energies to arresting people protesting against genocide and in support of the Palestine Action group.
The working class has the power to hold to account the capitalist governments that arm and are complicit in the genocidal murder of over 61,000 Palestinians in Gaza and the targeted assassinations of brave journalists who put their lives, and the lives of their families, on the line to expose the war crimes of Netanyahu’s murderous regime.
Workers must force their trade union leaders to end their silence and act by calling general strikes in the US, UK and Europe to bring down their regimes that support and enable Zionist genocide, and go forward to workers’ governments and socialism.
The burning issue today is to build up the WRP and Young Socialists in Britain and sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to provide the leadership required for the working class to take power and put an end to imperialist-enabled genocide with the victory of the world socialist revolution.
