Fears for six Palestinian journalists after Israel names them as targets
Fears are growing for the safety of six Palestinian journalists at Al Jazeera who Israel has accused, without providing credible evidence, of being fighters in Gaza.
On Wednesday, Israel's military claimed that Anas al-Sharif, Talal Aruki, Alaa Salama, Hossam Shabat, Ismail Farid and Ashraf Saraj were members of either Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
It said it had "documents" that proved that they were fighters, including alleged information about training courses and salaries.
Al Jazeera has strongly denied the claims, calling it "fabricated accusations" aimed at silencing the few remaining journalists in the Gaza Strip.
"These journalists have been steadfastly reporting from northern Gaza, with Al Jazeera being the sole international media presence documenting the unfolding humanitarian crisis resulting from Israel's siege and bombardment of civilian populations," the media network said.
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"Al Jazeera categorically rejects the Israeli occupation forces' portrayal of our journalists as terrorists and denounces their use of fabricated evidence."
It said that it feared the allegations would serve as "a pretext for further violence against the journalists, mirroring the tragic fates of other media professionals targeted and killed by Israeli occupation forces".
'Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing credible evidence'
– Committee to Protect Journalists
At least 128 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since the war began a year ago, according to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Responding to Israel's accusations against the journalists, the CPJ said: "Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing credible evidence."
It noted that after Israeli forces killed Al Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul in Gaza City on 31 July, they produced similar documents alleging that he was a Hamas fighter.
The "contradictory information" provided by Israel, the CPJ said, claimed that Ghoul had received a military ranking from Hamas in 2007 - when he would have been just 10 years old.
Al Jazeera noted that Ghoul had been detained during the Israeli army's raid on al-Shifa hospital and subsequently released.
The network said his release disproved Israel's "false claim of his affiliation with any organisation".
'Journalism is not a crime'
Freelance video journalist Rami al-Refee was also killed with Ghoul in the Israeli drone strike in July.
At the time, the UN special rapporteur on free speech, Irene Khan, denounced the "deliberate killing" of two journalists, and called on the International Criminal Court to prosecute the killings as war crimes.
According to international humanitarian law, journalists are protected under civilian status, unless they take direct part in hostilities. Khan said that Israel has not provided credible evidence to suggest that any of the journalists it has killed were not civilians.
"This type of Israeli accusations has been disproven in the past and of course Israel has a history of targeting journalists," Alonso Gurmendi-Dunkelberg, a researcher at the London School of Economics focused on the international regulation of war, told Middle East Eye.
"If these journalists are targeted, this is absolutely something that the ICC and [International Court of Justice] could look into.
"The ICC could verify if the targeting of journalists was contrary to international humanitarian law standards and the ICJ can use this as evidence of genocidal intent."
In addition to Ghoul, several other Al Jazeera journalists have been killed or wounded by Israel since the war began.
In December, an Israeli strike on Khan Younis killed Samer Abu Daqqa and wounded Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief, Wael al-Dahdouh.
Two months earlier, Dahdouh's wife, daughter, son and grandson were all killed by an Israeli air strike on Nuseirat refugee camp.
Dahdouh's son, Hamza, who was also an Al Jazeera journalist, was killed by an Israeli strike on Khan Younis in January.
Prior to the ongoing war, in May 2022, Israeli forces shot dead prominent Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.
Al Jazeera said that the latest Israeli accusations against its journalists were part of a "wider pattern of hostility" towards the network. In May, Israel's government ordered Al Jazeera to shut down its operations in Israel, and last month, Israeli troops raided its offices in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
"Al Jazeera calls on the international community to act with the utmost urgency to protect these journalists' lives and to put an end to Israeli crimes against media professionals," the network said.
"Journalism is not a crime, and we will continue to bring the truth to light, no matter what obstacles or threats we face."
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