Hezbollah condemns Israeli killing of journalists in Gaza as 'war crime'

Hezbollah on Monday condemned the Israeli strike that killed six journalists, including Anas al-Sharif, a prominent from Al Jazeera, in Gaza City, denouncing it as a "war crime."

The six men killed in the bombing were Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, as well as cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa. A freelance journalist, Mohammed al-Khaldi, who occasionally worked with local media outlets, was also killed in the Israeli attack.

This bombing, on a tent sheltering members of the press within the al-Shifa Hospital compound in Gaza City, was a “horrible and brutal crime.” The party stated in a release that “this is considered a full-fledged war crime that reveals the brutality, criminality and the moral and human depravity of this entity.”

“This systematic assassination of journalists, after the Israeli enemy decided to occupy the Gaza Strip, aims to prevent the media from playing their role in exposing crimes and massacres, including genocide and starvation of the people, as a prelude to imposing a forced displacement of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” the party stated.

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), nearly 200 journalists have been killed since the beginning of the war in Gaza. Sharif, 28, was one of the best-known faces among the correspondents covering the conflict daily. The Israeli army said it had targeted him, describing him as a “terrorist” who “pretended to be a journalist.”

Alongside Hezbollah, the Order of Editors in Lebanon also condemned the bombing and the “ongoing attacks against the media, as well as the war of extermination and starvation of the Palestinian people” in Gaza. Its president, Joseph Kosseifi, contacted the president of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, Nasser Abou Bakr, to offer his condolences and denounce the “atrocities” committed by Israel.