Six journalists among eight killed in Israeli airstrike outside Gaza hospital
Two journalists from Al Jazeera were killed, the network condemned the strike as a “targeted assassination".
Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who was killed in the airstrike (Photo - @normboy562 / X)
Guwahati, Aug 12: At least six journalists - two of them from Al Jazeera - and two other people were killed in an Israeli military airstrike on Sunday, when all of them were sheltering outside the Gaza City Hospital complex.
Officials at Shifa Hospital said that those killed included Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohamed Qureiqa.
The strike also killed four other journalists and two other people, hospital administrative director Rami Mohanna told The Associated Press. The strike also damaged the entrance to the hospital complex's emergency building.
Both Israel and hospital officials in Gaza City confirmed the deaths, which press advocates described as retribution against those documenting the war in Gaza.
Israel's military later described al-Sharif as the leader of a Hamas cell - an allegation that Al Jazeera and the 28-year-old al-Sharif had previously dismissed as baseless.
The incident marked the first time during the war that Israel's military has swiftly claimed responsibility after a journalist was killed in a strike. It came less than a year after Israeli army officials first accused al-Sharif and other Al Jazeera journalists of being members of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
In a July 24 video, Israel's army spokesperson Avichay Adraee attacked Al Jazeera and accused al-Shar-if of being part of Hamas's military wing.
Al Jazeera called the strike "targeted assassination" and accused Israeli officials of incitement, connecting al-Sharif's death to the allegations that both the network and correspondent had denied.
"Anas and his colleagues were among the last remaining voices from within Gaza, providing the world with unfiltered, on-the-ground coverage of the devastating realities endured by its people," the Qatari network said in a statement.
Al-Sharif reported a nearby bombardment minutes before his death. In a social media post that Al Jazeera said was written to be posted in case of his death, he bemoaned the devastation and destruction that war had wrought and bid farewell to his wife, son and daughter.
Al-Sharif began reporting for Al Jazeera a few days after war broke out. He was known for reporting on Israel's bombardment in northern Gaza, and later for the starvation gripping much of the territorv's population.
- with inputs from news agencies