Palestinians mourn slain journalist, media crew

PALESTINIANS in Gaza this week mourned the deaths of four Al Jazeera journalists and a freelance camera operator killed in an Israeli strike on Sunday.

- LOUISA LOVELUCK and ABBIE CHEESEMAN

In Gaza City, crowds carried the bodies of correspondent Anas al-Sharif and his colleagues, who for many across the Arabic-speaking world were the faces and voices of the past 22 months of war.

Sharif, 28, was perhaps the most recognisable, with a near-constant on-air presence from Gaza’s hard-hit north. He was killed on Sunday when the Israeli military targeted a tent housing the journalists outside al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The strike also killed reporter Mohammed Qureiga, and cameramen Ibrahim Thaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, the network said, calling it a “blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”. All, except for freelancer Aliwa, worked for Al Jazeera Arabic, the network’s Arabic-language news channel.