Berlin, Germany (Weltexpress). Israel is boasting that it deliberately killed journalist Anas al-Sharif and five of his colleagues in the Gaza Strip. But the arguments the state is using to justify this latest atrocity are once again a hodgepodge of lies, forgeries and nonsense.
Al-Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif documented Israel’s atrocities in the Gaza Strip for 22 months. The 28-year-old had long been a thorn in the side of the perpetrators. For months, they threatened and slandered him with a smear campaign, calling him a ‘Hamas terrorist’ before murdering him and his colleagues Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed al-Khalidi on Sunday evening in a targeted attack on their tent in Gaza City. Israel is trying to back up the accusation with ‘evidence’ – but this is hardly verifiable, at least partly fake, and a licence for barbarism.
Old selfies
To ‘prove’ al-Sharif’s alleged Hamas membership, the Israeli army used old photos in classic selfie style showing him with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Israel had killed Sinwar in October 2024 in the ruins of the city of Rafah in the completely bombed-out Gaza Strip after he took over the post of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyya, who had been killed two and a half months earlier.
The Israeli embassy in Berlin also circulated such a picture under the slogan ‘The truth about “journalist” Anas al-Sharif’ – with the obvious aim of discrediting him and his daily reports from the Gaza Strip, which had been sealed off and destroyed by Israel, until shortly before his death.
It is difficult to verify whether the photos are genuine, as AI can do a lot. But ultimately, that doesn’t matter, because such images are obviously not proof of Hamas membership – especially since they are clearly many years old. Even actual Hamas membership would not be grounds for killing someone. Under international law, mere membership or opinion does not make someone an active combatant. Moreover, what is happening in the Gaza Strip is not even a war in the true sense of the word.
Alleged ‘Hamas lists’
The Israeli army (IDF) also circulated alleged ‘Hamas lists’ citing ‘intelligence information and documents from Gaza’ on which al-Sharif’s name appeared. However, their authenticity is questionable, especially since this would not be the first time the IDF has lied with fake lists.
For example, at the end of 2023, the army presented an alleged ‘Hamas list’ to justify the bombing of the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City – until then the largest and most important clinic in the Gaza Strip. This list was supposed to prove the existence of an alleged ‘Hamas command centre’ under the hospital grounds.
Shortly afterwards, the supposed list of fighters turned out to be nothing more than a calendar – and the alleged names of the ‘terrorists’ were actually days of the week – a brazen lie that only a few media outlets that had spread it corrected, including france24.
To date, the IDF has not presented any other evidence of this ‘command centre’. It was a propaganda lie – as was presumably also the case with al-Sharif.
Fake ‘Telegram message’
Moreover, supposed ‘ultimate proof’ of al-Sharif’s ‘Hamas affiliation’ made it into major Western media outlets, including the German tabloid Bild, published by Axel Springer Press: an alleged Telegram message from the slain journalist dated 7 October 2023, in which he is said to have cheered the attack on Israel by Hamas and other groups from Gaza.
However, this alleged screenshot is clearly recognisable as a fake at first glance. Among other anomalies, it contains a publication date at the bottom of the ‘message,’ whereas real Telegram messages only show the time and number of views. In Telegram channels, the date is only visible above the first message of the day. The website The Skwawkbox clarified this fake on the same day. Despite this obviousness, Springer’s Bild quoted from this fake as if it were fact.
Fischberger’s Hasbara fairy tale
The fake Telegram message was obviously spread by the well-known Israeli propagandist Eitan Fischberger. Shortly after the journalists were murdered, he posted the image on X and wrote: ‘To all journalists who asked me if this screenshot is real – yes, it is 100% real.’ He then spun a story claiming that al-Sharif had deleted the message but that he had restored it from the web archive.
Fischberger describes himself on LinkedIn as a ‘researcher, author, analyst and strategic advisor from Jerusalem’. However, he is a long-known disseminator of Israeli propaganda campaigns. On 30 July, eleven days before the assassination of al-Sharif and his colleagues, he launched the Israeli government’s lie that there was no famine in the Gaza Strip due to the Israeli blockade. The ‘argument’ was that some of the many starving children shown had pre-existing conditions.
However, Israel’s hunger blockade, which Tel Aviv has enforced with varying degrees of intensity since the beginning of the genocide, but which has been massively tightened since the beginning of March this year, has been well documented and proven by Western aid organisations and doctors, as have its catastrophic effects. This kind of hunger games is not new, by the way: since the 1990s, Israel has been restricting the import of food and other goods into the occupied Palestinian territories. Since the beginning of the all-out siege of the Gaza Strip in 2006, the Israeli government has even calculated the calorie requirements of the inhabitants.
Bullshit arguments
Now for the most important point: even if all of this were true, all of these alleged ‘Hamas lists’ and ‘screenshots’ would still not be valid arguments.
The only thing that could justify al-Sharif’s killing under international law would be proof that he was actively involved in combat operations immediately prior to his assassination. However, this can be ruled out, as he posted his last journalistic article on X just minutes before his death, in which he reported on serious Israeli air strikes on Gaza City and shared a short video of them.
Israel’s argument is not only contrary to international law, but also dangerous and stupid. According to this logic, any warring party in any war could kill all civilians whom it could prove to be close to the enemy regime: nurses in public clinics, police officers, government employees, members of a ruling party, members of parliament and journalists reporting on the government.
Yes, according to this ‘logic,’ even Hamas’ attack on presumably all civilian Jewish-Israeli victims over the age of 18 would be ‘legitimate,’ because, as is well known, Israel conscripts them all upon reaching the age of majority, with the exception of ultra-Orthodox Torah students. Thus, those killed inevitably had contact with the enemy army during their lives and may still have it today. Israeli propagandists should therefore think through their ‘argument’ a little more thoroughly.
Systematic murders
Al-Sharif and his five colleagues are not the first members of the press to be murdered by Israel. According to an analysis by the broadcaster Al Jazeera of lists of names from several organisations, Israel killed up to 274 journalists, photographers and aid workers working for various media outlets in the Gaza Strip within two years – many of them deliberately.
The organisation Reporters Without Borders has therefore, according to its own statements, filed four criminal complaints against Israeli officials with the International Criminal Court (ICC). The fact is that in the Gaza Strip, where more than two million people are now crammed into just 40 to 70 square kilometres, the occupying power has killed more members of the press than in any other war since the Second World War.
Killing the truth
Even before the Hamas attack just under two years ago, Israel was systematically targeting journalists it didn’t like. On 11 May 2022, an Israeli sniper murdered Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh with a shot to the head in the refugee town of Jenin in the illegally occupied West Bank. Here, too, Palestinian and international investigators and media initially fought against a campaign of lies initiated by Israel. Ultimately, the IDF admitted to the act, but publicly portrayed it as an ‘accident.’
The motive, then as now, is obvious: The State of Israel, which, according to an opinion of the International Court of Justice, illegally occupies or besieges all Palestinian territories and operates a racist system there that deprives Palestinians of their rights, wants to curb reporting on its ongoing atrocities – by systematically eliminating reporters. But the truth cannot be killed in the long run.
