Israeli investigative journalist Yuval Abraham has exposed that the assassination of Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al-Sharif in Gaza was a calculated move under a wider Israeli policy aimed at granting “legitimacy” to the killing of journalists. According to Abraham, this strategy seeks to ensure the world sees as little as possible of the crimes committed in the besieged enclave, with the military actively working to frame Palestinian reporters as Hamas operatives to justify their targeting.

Abraham revealed that after October 7, 2023, Israeli Military Intelligence formed a “Legitimacy Cell” tasked with finding any pretext to defend attacks on civilians, journalists, or infrastructure, even when evidence was lacking. He stressed that the military had no proof linking Al-Sharif to Hamas, and that his assassination was deliberate, citing the simultaneous killing of four other journalists in the same airstrike. The Israeli military later admitted Al-Sharif was the main target, timing his killing to coincide with plans to occupy Gaza City and silence one of the few remaining voices documenting the genocide.

In the past two years, Al-Sharif had produced courageous and meticulous coverage of the war’s devastation, while much of the Israeli press, Abraham said, normalized mass killings and starvation. Since the war began, Israel has killed 230 journalists in Gaza and blocked foreign media access, ensuring the atrocities remain hidden. On Sunday, Israeli warplanes bombed a journalists’ tent near Al-Shifa Hospital, killing seven, including Al-Sharif, photographers Ibrahim Zahir and Moamen Alweiwah, and driver Mohammed Noufal.