“I condemn the killing of journalists Anas Al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, Moamen Aliwa, and Mohammed Al-Khaldi and call for a thorough and transparent investigation,” UNESCO’s Director-General, Audrey Azoulay, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Five of the six worked for the influential Qatari-based media organization, Al Jazeera: Anas Al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh were on air correspondents, while Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa worked as camera operators. Mohammed Al-Khaldi was a freelance photojournalist.

They were reportedly killed by an Israeli attack on a tent used by media personnel at the entrance of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Blatant, premeditated attack

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) alleged that 28-year-old correspondent Anas al-Sharif was a serving Hamas operative. Al Jazeera strongly denies this, describing the attack as an “assassination” and “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom.”

The UN Human Rights Council-appointed independent expert on freedom of expression issued a statement on 31 July denouncing an Israeli military spokesperson’s “repeated threats” and “unfounded accusations” against Mr. Anas Al-Sharif, flagging it as “a blatant attempt to endanger his life and silence his reporting” in Gaza.

Condemning the attack in the strongest possible terms on Tuesday, two special rapporteurs described the killings as “an attempt to silence reporting on the ongoing genocide and starvation campaign” in Gaza.

“It is outrageous that the Israeli army dares to first launch a campaign to smear Anas Al-Sharif as Hamas in order to discredit his reporting and then kill him and his colleagues for speaking the truth to the world,” the experts said, demanding an immediate investigation into the killings and full access to international media, which Israel currently bars from entering Gaza.

Special Rapporteurs and other independent experts are appointed by and report regularly to the Human Rights Council. They work in their individual capacity, are not UN staff and receive no payment for their work.

Violation of international law

UNESCO chief Ms. Azoulay stressed that targeting journalists reporting on conflicts is unacceptable and violates international law.

She also reiterated her call to respect UN Security Council Resolution 2222, which was unanimously adopted in 2015 to protect journalists, media professionals and associated personnel in conflict situations.

Since October 2023, UNESCO has reported at least 62 journalists and media workers killed in the line of duty in Palestine, excluding deaths in circumstances unrelated to their work, while OHCHR reports that at least 242 Palestinian journalists have been killed in the same time frame.