In a post on X on Wednesday 23 October, Israel’s military claimed it had found documentation “confirming military affiliation of six Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations, including personnel tables, lists of terrorist training courses, phone directories, and salary documents for terrorists”.
The IDF added that these alleged documents “serve as proof of the integration of Hamas terrorists within the Qatari Al Jazeera media network”, and claimed that “most of the journalists that the IDF has exposed as operatives in Hamas’ military wing spearhead the propaganda for Hamas at Al Jazeera, especially in northern Gaza”.
In response to these claims, the network released a statement saying:
Al Jazeera categorically rejects the Israeli occupation forces’ portrayal of our journalists as terrorists and denounces their use of fabricated evidence’. It also said the claims were ‘a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide.
The Canary showed the IDF’s alleged ‘evidence’ to someone from Gaza who is Arabic speaking. They concluded that the evidence was ‘falsified’, as the Arabic was “weak”, and not written in a way that a natural Arabic writer would.
Our source also concluded that all this means Israel intends to assassinate the journalists.
Israel’s wider campaign against Al Jazeera
The six named journalists, whose photos also appear on the post, are Anas al-Sharif, Talal Aruki, Alaa Salama, Hosam Shabat, Ismail Farid, and Ashraf Saraj.
This is part of a wider campaign against the network and its journalists, with Netanyahu previously branding Al Jazeera a ‘terror channel’, and accusing it of harming national security and actively participating in the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel.
The channel has been banned from reporting inside Israel and also the West Bank where last month, its bureau in Ramallah – which, according to the Oslo Accords, is under Palestinian control – was raided by heavily armed soldiers and closed down for 45 days. Staff were given 10 minutes to leave.
A statement released yesterday by the Committee to Protect Journalists said Israel:
has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing credible evidence.
Al Jazeera is one of only a few news organisations still broadcasting from Gaza, and its journalists have been the target of many Israeli attacks, simply for reporting on the endless atrocities they witness on a daily basis.
In August, Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul was also accused by the IDF of being a Hamas operative who took part in the 7 October attacks. The network denied these allegations and said the IDF had not provided “any proof, documentation or video” of its claims, and the allegations highlighted “Israel’s long history of fabrications and false evidence used to cover up its heinous crimes”.
Al-Ghoul was decapitated by Israel when the car he was travelling in was bombed.
Killing journalists
Earlier this month, freelance journalist Hassan Hamad was killed in an Israeli airstrike which hit his home in Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza.
Al Jazeera reported Hamad’s killing and stated the journalist was warned by an Israeli officer to stop filming in Gaza.
Al Jazeera cameraman Ali Attar was hit by an airstrike in central Gaza and the next day Fadi al-Wahidi, also a cameraman, was shot in the neck by an Israeli sniper while covering the attacks in Jabalia, in Northern Gaza. Both journalists are in a critical condition and awaiting Israel to approve their evacuation for medical treatment. All approvals from receiving countries are in place, but no more can be done until Israel takes action.
Meanwhile, al-Wahidi, who became paralysed after the shooting, has now fallen into a coma. And still they await evacuation.
Israel, the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’, has barred foreign journalists from entering Gaza, since the beginning of this genocide. Only those embedded with the IDF are currently permitted entry into the strip, but they only get to see what the military wants them to see.
So, Gaza’s journalists are the world’s eyes and ears and risk their lives to draw our attention to Israel’s crimes and the resulting human suffering. They, like the rest of the population, are struggling to survive, but they still continue with their work.
Without them we would have no idea what is happening in the enclave. They too have been displaced, have no electricity, are hungry, thirsty, and have lost family members. Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif earlier this week discovered, while live on air, that Israel had killed his relatives.
Israel: yet more war crimes
Al-Sharif has already received several threats. Once by phone last year, from the Israeli military, ordering him to stop his coverage and leave Northern Gaza. Then, in August, IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee accused him of “presenting a lie” in his coverage of an Israeli airstrike that killed dozens of people in a school building.
The spokesperson also insinuated the journalist had ties to Hamas, without providing evidence.
In a further attempt to silence the truth, al-Sharif, along with the other five journalists named by the IDF yesterday, now stand accused of being ‘terrorists’. Their lives will surely be in imminent danger, yet while the genocide continues so will their stories, as they continue to hope the world will listen.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 123 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed since 7 October, more than at any other time since the organisation began gathering data in 1992. As of yesterday, 69 journalists have been reported arrested, and there have also been multiple assaults, threats, cyberattacks, censorship, and targeted killings of family members.
The deliberate targeting of journalists is a war crime, yet they are frequently coming under attack despite being clearly identifiable in jackets and helmets marked ‘press’, or travelling in well-marked press vehicles.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes committed against journalists in Gaza. Following the first two complaints, the office of International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan assured RSF that crimes against journalists are included in its investigation into the situation in Palestine:
