Protests and memorials have erupted worldwide, and calls for accountability are growing after four Al Jazeera staff members were assassinated in an Israeli strike on Gaza.
Late on Sunday, an Israeli attack hit a media tent outside the main gate of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, killing Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Anas al-Sharif, 28, along with colleagues, correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, 33, and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, 25, and Mohammed Noufal, 29.
Also killed were freelance cameraman Momen Aliwa, 23, and freelance journalist Mohammed al-Khalidi, 37.
Gaza’s Government Media Office says at least 238 journalists have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began in late 2023.
The latest killings have prompted outrage around the world. In Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Palestinians filled the streets, waving flags and carrying photographs of the slain reporters.
Hundreds rallied in Tunisia, demanding accountability for the attacks. Protests took place in Northern Ireland’s capital, Belfast and Republic of Ireland’s capital, Dublin, while vigils were held in Berlin, Germany and the Netherlands. Earlier demonstrations took place in Washington, DC, as well as London, Oslo and Stockholm.
In the US capital, Washington, DC, protesters gathered outside a building housing NBC, Fox News, ITN and The Guardian.
Demonstrators were “banging pots and pans, making as much noise as possible” to disrupt live broadcasts happening inside, said Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi, reporting from the scene.
“The demonstrators say their coverage of the genocide in Gaza has given Israel room to kill so many Palestinians and, notably, so many journalists,” he said.
“Their message is: You are no longer the gatekeepers. We know what’s happening in Gaza. We know about the genocide despite your best efforts,” he added.
Rattansi said candles were lit for each journalist killed in Gaza, with particular attention given to al-Sharif.
Hazami Barmada, one of the organisers of the Washington, DC protest, told Al Jazeera the media organisations had helped to create “public consent for the murder of these journalists … by making excuses for the Israeli government to target and kill them”.
She added: “After their death, [the media organisations] continue to justify the illegal death, shooting, bombing and murdering journalists, which is a crime against humanity and a war crime.”
Press freedom group PEN America said the killing of the journalists in Gaza “raises grave concerns” and “could amount to a war crime”.
“This attack not only wiped out an entire team of journalists – at a time when there are fewer and fewer voices able to report from Gaza – but also took six more Palestinian lives in an onslaught that has already claimed thousands of lives,” said Liesl Gerntholtz, managing director of its PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center.
“The fact that [Anas] al-Sharif’s family, friends, and colleagues must now defend him from unsupported accusations rather than being able to mourn him and honour his legacy as a journalist adds to the disgraceful nature of this crime,” Gerntholtz added.
PEN America noted that al-Sharif was previously part of a Reuters team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2024.
Elsewhere, an Australian journalists’ union released a statement condemning the “targeted killing” of the Palestinian media workers this week and the killing of “nearly 200 others”.
The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), the largest organisation representing journalists in Australia, said al-Sharif’s “reports brought to the world the reality of the horrors being inflicted by the Israeli Government on the civilians in Gaza”.
“The targeting of journalists is a blatant attack on press freedom, and it is also a war crime. It must stop,” MEAA said, also calling for Israel’s ban preventing international journalists from reporting from Gaza to be lifted.
Separately, the United Nations condemned the killings, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calling for an “independent and impartial investigation”, his spokesperson said.
The killings come as Israel’s Security Cabinet has approved Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to expand military operations and occupy Gaza City.
In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
