Daily Dates NG reports that the attack late on Sunday on the tent located outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital also killed Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal. Also killed were freelance cameraman Momen Aliwa and freelance journalist Mohammed al-Khalidi.

Shortly before being killed, al-Sharif, a well-known 28-year-old Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who had reported extensively from northern Gaza, wrote on X that Israel had launched intense, concentrated bombardment – also known as “fire belts” – on the eastern and southern parts of Gaza City.

In his last video, the loud booms of Israel’s intensive missile bombing can be heard in the background as the dark sky is lit in a flash of orange light.

In a final message, written on April 6, to be published in the event of his death, al-Sharif said he “lived the pain in all its details” and “tasted grief and loss repeatedly”.

“Despite that, I never hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or misrepresentation, hoping that God would witness those who remained silent, those who accepted our killing, and those who suffocated our very breaths,” he said.

“Not even the mangled bodies of our children and women moved their hearts or stopped the massacre that our people have been subjected to for over a year and a half.”

The reporter also expressed sorrow for having had to leave his wife, Bayan, behind, and for not seeing his son, Salah, and daughter, Sham, grow up.

In a statement, Al Jazeera Media Network condemned the killings as “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”.

“This attack comes amid the catastrophic consequences of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has seen the relentless slaughter of civilians, forced starvation, and the obliteration of entire communities,” the network said.

“The order to assassinate Anas Al Sharif, one of Gaza’s bravest journalists, and his colleagues, is a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza.”

In a statement confirming the deliberate killing of al-Sharif, Israel’s military accused the journalist of heading a Hamas cell and “advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and [Israeli] troops”. It also alleged that it had documents providing “unequivocal proof” of his involvement with the Palestinian group.

Muhammed Shehada, an analyst at the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, said there was “zero evidence” that al-Sharif took part in any hostilities.

“His entire daily routine was standing in front of a camera from morning to evening,” he told Al Jazeera.

Last month, after Israeli army spokesperson Avichai Adraee reshared a video on social media accusing al-Sharif of being a member of Hamas’s military wing, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of expression, Irene Khan, said she was “deeply alarmed by repeated threats and accusations of the Israeli army” against al-Sharif.

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