Sunday evening in Gaza City brought yet another dark chapter in the war on Palestinian journalism as an Israeli airstrike struck a tent for reporters outside the Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, killing six journalists; five of them were Al Jazeera journalists, including prominent correspondent Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqea.
The Israeli army openly admitted it had targeted al-Sharif, labelling him a Hamas operative, a claim long used by Israel to justify killing reporters.
Al Jazeera called it a "premeditated assassination" and "a blatant attack on press freedom," accusing Israel of trying to silence voices before pressing ahead with its plan to seize Gaza City.
Israel's war on Gaza has become the deadliest conflict for journalists in modern history. According to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, before October 2023, there were more than 1,500 journalists in Gaza. Since then, at least 238 have been killed by Israel, more than 500 were wounded, and virtually all have displaced after losing their homes to Israeli attacks.
Speaking to The New Arab, Palestinian journalists said that the Israeli army insisting on killing more and more journalists simply to wipe out the truth in Gaza and hide its crimes.
"Assassinating Anas, Mohammed, and their colleagues proves the occupation wants to erase every eye that sees the truth," Hamada al-Hattab, a Palestinian journalist from Gaza City, told TNA.
He described Qreiqea as "fearless in the field" and al-Sharif as "a voice present in every home in Gaza… like a family member narrating what was happening around you."
"All of us [as Palestinian journalists] know that the army may kill us at any time, just because we are the voices of our people who can translate the catastrophe here," he added.
Shireen Khalifa, a freelance journalist, recalled speaking with one of the slain cameramen less than an hour before Israel's attack.
"He sent me photos from the tent, saying they were documenting the shelling around Al-Shifa," she said.
"Israel wants a media vacuum, so its narrative is the only one heard, [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu talks about letting foreign journalists in, while killing Palestinian journalists in front of cameras," she added. "It is clear that the killing has a direct message to everyone carrying a camera in Gaza, or those who raise their voices against the crimes against our people."
For Shireen, the bigger threat is the attempt to make journalism in Gaza impossible. "If there's no coverage, there's no testimony to the crimes," she said.
Silencing witnesses
For over 22 months of war, al-Sharif's face and voice had been a constant presence for Gaza's besieged population and viewers around the world.
Born in 1996, he was among the few still broadcasting live from the heart of devastation. Just weeks ago, he was filmed in Al-Shifa hospital's courtyard, his voice shaking as he spoke of children starving to death.
His final testament, written in April and posted on his social media accounts after his death, reads like a will: "If these words of mine reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice […] I have never hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without falsification or distortion."
Mohammed Qreiqea, a correspondent from Gaza's Shujaiya neighbourhood, who continued to report after his colleague Ismail al-Ghoul was assassinated by the Israeli army in July 2024, was also killed by that same attack.
Just minutes before his assassination, Qreiqea appeared on Al-Jazeera, warning, "It is a difficult and difficult night for the Palestinians," unaware that his latest warning would be the last in his life.
Qreiqea's life had been marked by personal tragedy: the Israeli army killed his mother when he stormed Al-Shifa hospital in March 2024, and months earlier, he buried his brother, who succumbed to wounds at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital due to a lack of medicine.
Despite grief and exhaustion, Qreiqea worked day and night, documenting bombardments, hospital collapses, and starvation.
"Those who escape death by bombing may not survive death by starvation," he once reported.
The Israeli attack also killed four cameramen, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Nofal, Moamen Aliwa, and Mohammed al-Khalidi, all of whom were filming inside the journalists' tent as Israeli restrictions on foreign media entry tightened.
Human rights groups and press freedom organisations worldwide swiftly condemned the killings, describing them as part of a systematic war on journalism in Gaza.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a press statement the strike fitted into Israel's "repeated pattern" of labelling Palestinian reporters as combatants without providing any verifiable evidence, a tactic critics say is designed to justify their targeting and to shield the army from accountability.
"Journalists are civilians and must never be targeted under any circumstances," CPJ's Regional Director Sara Qudah said, calling for "an independent, international investigation" into what she described as "a deliberate attempt to extinguish independent voices from Gaza."
The condemnation was echoed by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which accused Israel of "weaponising false accusations" to blur the distinction between combatants and journalists in the public mind.
Amnesty International warned that the killing of the Al Jazeera crew was "a textbook example of a targeted attack on civilians performing their professional duty," stressing that it may amount to a war crime under international law.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) also demanded urgent intervention by the United Nations, noting that Gaza had become "the most dangerous place in the world to be a journalist," with an unprecedented number of media workers killed in less than two years.
"This is not collateral damage, it is a campaign to destroy the eyes and ears of the world inside Gaza," the IFJ said in a statement.
Legal experts pointed out that the Geneva Conventions explicitly protect journalists as civilians in conflict zones, meaning any deliberate targeting is prohibited.
Yet, as rights groups stressed, the lack of international accountability mechanisms has emboldened Israel to continue its lethal campaign against the press, creating a chilling effect on those who remain in the field.
The assassination of the Al Jazeera crew came two days after Israel's cabinet approved a plan to occupy Gaza City, sparking global criticism.
For his part, Netanyahu claimed the operation would "dismantle Hamas strongholds" while allowing "more foreign journalists" to embed with Israeli forces, seen by many as an effort to control the war's narrative after removing local voices.
Tahseen al-Astal, deputy head of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, told TNA that the attack was "a full-fledged war crime" and part of a systematic campaign to silence witnesses.
"They killed our colleagues because they documented crimes with audio and video. This has been happening since the first day of the war," he said.
Al-Astal condemned Netanyahu's statements about letting in foreign reporters: "This is political hypocrisy. They welcome journalists under army supervision while killing Gaza's reporters one by one."
He argued that the world's "shameful silence" over these crimes only emboldens Israel to continue.
"Even if they kill all the journalists in Gaza, the truth will remain alive in our people's memory. It will come out, no matter how much they try to bury it under the rubble," al-Astal said.