CPJ warned that Israeli ‘smear campaign’ against al-Sharif could be a percussor to an assassination
In October, Israel accused al-Sharif and “a number of other journalists of being terrorists without providing any credible proof”, Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), tells Al Jazeera.
“We warned back then that this felt to us like a precursor to justify assassination, and, of course, last month… we saw again, a repeated smear campaign”, she said.
“This is not solely about Anas al-Sharif, this is part of a pattern that we have seen from Israel… going back decades, in which it kills journalists”, Ginsberg said.
“It accuses journalists of being terrorists and then provides no credible proof, and it’s no accident that in October, Anas [al-Sharif] was one of the journalists raising international awareness of an increased incursion by Israel into Gaza, and increasing… offensive, and, of course”, she said.
“He warned last month about the starvation facing journalists… and we saw then the accusations repeated, and, of course, now we are seeing a new offensive, plans for a new offensive, in Gaza, the kind of thing that Anas has been reporting on for the best part of three years.”
Israel’s killing of journalists another war crime to ‘erase genocidal crimes’
The Government Media Office in Gaza has confirmed that the deliberate killing of five Al Jazeera staff has brought the total number of journalists killed by Israel since the start of the war to 237.
It said in a statement that the killings constitute a fully-fledged war crime “aimed at silencing the truth and erasing the features of genocidal crimes” committed by Israel.
“It is a prelude to the [Israeli] occupation’s criminal plan to cover up the past and upcoming brutal massacres that it has carried out and intends to carry out in the Gaza Strip.”
The office said it holds Israel, the US and all countries “involved in the genocide” fully responsible for the systematic crimes against journalists and media workers in the enclave, and renewed its call for international organisations to intervene.
A look back at some of Anas al-Sharif’s reporting
In August of 2024, Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif was reporting on an Israeli attack that killed more than 17 displaced Palestinians sheltering at a school in central Gaza, when an air attack hit the school again.
Watch below as an example of the kind of fearless work our murdered colleague undertook every day of Israel’s war on Gaza:
