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On August 10, 2025, an Israeli airstrike struck a media tent outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, killing Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Anas al-Sharif along with colleagues Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa, as well as Mohammed al-Khaldi from Sahat Media Platform and a civilian, Saad Jundiya. The tent had been a key base for frontline reporting, and its destruction has been widely condemned by media and human rights organizations as a deliberate attack on journalists.
In response, the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) have filed a formal submission to the International Criminal Court under Article 15, alleging that the killings were part of a systematic campaign to target and silence Palestinian journalists. The legal filing names senior Israeli military and intelligence figures, including Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, Maj.-Gen. Tomer Bar, Maj.-Gen. Yaniv Asor, Brig.-Gen. Yossi Sariel and Col. Avichay Adraee as those responsible for ordering, carrying out, or facilitating the strike.
The submission draws on field evidence, eyewitness testimony, and patterns from other targeted killings of journalists in Gaza. It argues that Israeli forces have repeatedly smeared media workers as “terrorists” before killing them, indicating premeditation rather than collateral damage. HRF and PCHR also call for the ICC to expand its existing warrants, including against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to encompass crimes against journalists, and to investigate the more than 220 journalist deaths documented since October 2023.
Dyab Abou Jahjah, HRF chairman, described the killing of al-Sharif and his team as “so blunt, so arrogant” that allowing it to go unpunished would undermine the very principle of journalist protection under international law. Both organizations stress that prosecuting such cases is essential to ending impunity for attacks on the press and to safeguarding the right to report from conflict zones.